The Age of Reason is a free Bible study/Christian history that shows how and why modern Christianity became apostate. |
In
today’s apostate Christianity most Christians do not know the Bible, are not
seriously striving to master the Bible, and have no motivation to repent
because they compare themselves with the other shallow Christians with whom
they choose to congregate. When they look for Christian reading material,
therefore, they want a book that will appeal to their emotions and assure them
that all is well with their souls. They will not like The Age of Reason
because it reveals apostasy even among good Christians like you, brother, who are
motivated by a true, deep, and humble love for the Lord to obediently master
His Book. When they read these chapter summaries they will be offended by the
fact that they say things that are different from what they were fed by
tradition. That will offend them because they think apostasy afflicts other
Christians, not them. And they aren’t humble enough to search the Scriptures to
see whether these things be so – that’s why they prefer to read little
inadequate “summaries” like these rather than read the chapters themselves that
rely on studying the Scriptures (chapter and verse) and submitting to the
authority of what God says. Do not be like them, brother. And do not be
surprised if you read things here that offend you; after all, if I really am
revealing apostasy I am going to offend you. (Pvb
27:17: Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.) Of course, if I’m
just a deluded crackpot I’m going to offend you, too – and that’s why I depend
on your love for the Scriptures to take you to the chapters themselves
where I make my case based on Thus saith the Lord...
I say again: your Christianity cannot be slothfully based on shortcuts like
chapter summaries, spoon-fed doctrines via weekly sermons, and ear-tickling
books. Our relationship with the Lord is supposed to be based on one thing and
one thing only – what the Bible says. In order to reveal apostasy
I am going to have to cut across the grain, so remember that you can’t write me
off when these summaries offend you; you can only do that if the Bible
study doesn’t back me up. Most Christians prefer the safety of these
summaries because in them they are only rejecting me – and that’s fine.
But in the Bible they’d have to reject the Lord of the Bible – and that’s
exactly what I’m going to prove modern Christianity has unknowingly done. Let
them that have ears that hear, hear.
You may CLICK a TITLE to jump down to that summary. (H = Historical, D = Doctrinal Chapters) |
INTRO EXCERPT:
When the Lord Jesus
Christ showed up the first time His “Bible-believing”, Bible-preaching,
soul-winning, praying, tithing, fasting, sabbath-keeping followers not only did not recognize Him, they despised and
rejected His teachings and chose Barabbas over Him...I put Bible-believing
in quotes because of the undeniable fact that the Lord wasn’t crucified by Bible
believers who went by what His Bible said; He was crucified by theologians
who went by what other books said the
Bible meant.
. . .
This book is intended to be a
wake-up call for those who believe what the Bible says. It is meant to
introduce them to the fact that, just as Eve was deceived by the subtlety of
Satan, they, too, just may be tradition-bound, Bible-rejecting, blind followers of men who know neither the Scriptures nor
the power of God. It is hoped they will get a glimpse of the sad fact that while
they are piously teaching new Christians not to smoke or to use “the f word”,
they are unknowingly rejecting the authority
of God and are in danger of going to hell. And when I say that, I am not just
speaking to those unskillful in the word of righteousness. Neither am I merely including the proud old but generally liberal
mainline denominations such as the Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, and
Presbyterians. I am also addressing those denominations, independent or not,
that generally consider themselves to be champions of “orthodoxy” and
“fundamentalism” such as the Assemblies of God, Baptists, Churches of Christ,
and today’s popular nondenominational mega churches. And, lest anyone think I’m
favoring some cult, I include in that group the Roman Catholic, Mormon,
Jehovah’s Witness, and Seventh-Day Adventist churches.
If I’ve left any group out please be assured that I believe that just as it was
during the time of the First Coming so it is today: To be affiliated with any denomination is to be linked with apostasy.
(My definition of cult: Any religion that allows or encourages people to
think something within the organization – such as a book, a person, or a
committee – has doctrinal authority equal to or greater than the Holy Bible.)
I hope to help those individuals
who are trying to ensure that their relationship with Jesus Christ is in
accordance with the Bible – not tradition – because they know that the Word of
God and the word of God are inseparable. Many people, however, will read this
book just to see if I agree with their pet doctrine(s) or not.
Today many Christians, when looking for a Bible study, are not humbly looking
for something that will train them up in the way they should go by teaching
them the hard truths of God; they are smugly looking for something that will
tickle their ears by assuring them that, in spite of their appalling ignorance
of the word of God, they are somehow already on the path of righteousness. They
want to read, not study; and they want to agree, not learn. In other words, they prefer to waste their time with “Bible
studies” they don’t need because they already know and agree with
everything in them! Those people are already
offended by this introduction and will not like this book because they prefer
books that make them feel good about themselves – not books that show them to
be part of the modern Babylonian captivity. Immature Christians will ignore the
major and damning tenets of this book that show the church and its doctrines to
be corrupt. They will do so by taking offense at trivial things I may say along
the way that they disagree with – but that do not affect their Christian
walk in any way! In other words, because they cannot deal with the major
and far-reaching reasons this book was written, they’ll strain at gnats,
swallow camels, quit studying, and go find something less challenging. Keep
that in mind as you read this book because it is not for babes in Christ; this
is a meaty Bible study written for soldiers; the gloves are off. It’s time for some
Swordplay; for as iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend. There is too much
pabulum in the pulpits, which has turned men into panty-waisted,
effeminate, supercilious little sissies whose “Christian” world is so far removed
from the fight that it’s no longer sticks and stones that hurt – it’s words! That’s what lip service does.
The Lord is a man of war (Ex 15:3). He wants us to be men of war
(Ju 3:1,2; Ps 144:1;
1 Ti 6:12). Sadly, we’re having trouble producing men let alone warriors.
The modern church has filled our ranks with medics and psychologists whose
carnal preoccupation with social acceptance has made “Christianity” unappealing
to and even hostile towards warriors. Being for men of war, this book is very
direct; you’ll have no trouble knowing what I’m saying. My directness will
offend those modern Christians who do not understand war and what is needed to
participate in war. I say again: Modern Christians understand neither war
nor the total involvement needed to successfully participate in war.
God likes and uses patterns
(He 9:23,24) and repetition (Ec 1:9,10), therefore beginnings in
the Bible are important because they teach us 1) the way God established His
kingdom, and 2) how to recognize manmade differences from His
established order. God established His pattern when He created His angels and
His Kingdom: God owned everything and everyone, and God was the one and only
Head and He alone made all of the decisions. But then we see a change to
that order: Rather than accept God as his boss, Lucifer began to think and do
things on his own, which is carnality. That was not submission to
God; it was rebellion against His authority and robbery of His prerogatives of Headship and ownership. It was also murder because if God accepted that
situation it would make God cease to be God, the One and Only Head – God would
become a god. Lucifer was taking power from the King and giving it to the
people. Therefore, God established another pattern: Based on independence vs.
submissive obedience God decided to throw some of His own children out of His
household, which divided the angels into two groups, His angels and devils –
and the war was on. The war intimately involves humans. God wins if we remain
submissive to His Headship, Satan wins if he can get us to think and do things on
our own. Therefore, the issue in the war is authority. God wants us
to focus on obedience, Satan wants us to focus on what we think is right
and wrong. (Lucifer’s goal
is not the disappearance of the
church; it’s the disobedience of the
church.) That is why God
established another pattern by giving Adam and Eve a simple order: Do not
partake of the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil
– because God alone would decide for us what was right and what was
wrong. But Satan introduced a change to that order by getting Adam and Eve to
think knowing right and wrong was actually good. Then we get another lesson
because as soon as they ate the fruit of right and wrong, Adam and Eve couldn't
help deciding on their own: They decided – without consulting God
– that nudity was wrong, and they made aprons of fig
leaves to cover themselves. In spite of the fact that Adam was now “clothed”,
he still hid from God because he understood that what he had done on
his own, even if he thought it was right and good, would not please God.
God responded with outrage. He kicked Adam and Eve out of His garden. What we
learn: God isn’t offended by either nudity or fig leaves…He is offended when we
usurp His prerogative as The One Who Decides Everything. We offend Him when we
stop being subjects whose lives revolve around knowing and doing His
will, and instead become citizens whose lives revolve around doing what we
think is right and good. In other words good is obeying God, and evil is doing
anything without first consulting Him. By understanding that, we realize the
purpose of God’s laws: They exist to teach us and to condemn us. An example
of condemnation is when God asked Adam, “Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I
commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?” God was
showing Adam an undeniable fact – Adam broke the law and deserved to be
kicked out. But the law is also good because it can teach us: Our sins
eventually make us realize we cannot help breaking some law every now and then.
That makes us fear God’s wrath, which makes us want to please Him more, which
makes us study His Book in an effort to learn His rules, which makes us get to
know Him better, which makes us better appreciate and respect His leadership,
wisdom, love, and mercy, which makes us love Him more…and that cycle continues
until we grow close enough to Him to realize the actual laws themselves are not
important; what is important is doing His will – no matter what that is
because He is God and we are His servants who love Him. The Pharisees never
learned that because their lack of genuine love for God made them never go
through the above cycle; they stopped at learning His laws and therefore never
learned that doing His will is our one and only duty. Peter had to be
trained out of his Pharisaical focus on the written laws and learn to do the
will of God (Ac 10:13,14). At Judgment if
God sees our heart was on Him, we’ll inherit the promises. But if He sees our
heart avoided the above growth cycle by fixating on the laws, He’ll use those
laws to show us we broke them and deserve to be kicked out of His household.
In short, if all we do is learn His laws we are merely learning about the very
things that will condemn us – just like the Pharisees. But if our genuine love
for God makes us go deeper into the cycle, we’ll eventually realize the laws
are parables that He uses to hide Himself – the Pearl of Great Price –
from those who do not really care about Him, and to reveal Himself to those who
love Him enough to spend time at His feet. In that way we grow more
appreciative of His laws because they are great and wonderful schoolmasters
indeed. A man’s relationship with the Bible is an exact indication of his
relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ…a superficial relationship indicates
condemnation; a genuine relationship indicates mercy. This chapter also introduces
other fundamental issues and principles that are necessary to understanding the
rest of the Bible.
CHAPTER EXCERPT:
Earlier, Adam
had yielded his sovereignty by allowing his body (Eve) to get him into trouble,
which resulted in his being cursed by God. Noah also surrendered control over
his body by getting drunk (Ge 9:21).
The head should never democratically surrender control to its body
because the head is supposed to be a monarch. Noah’s drunkenness was bad
because his head became incapacitated and surrendered control to his body.
These episodes would later result in laws against fornication
(but not against intercourse) and laws against drunkenness (but
not against intoxicating beverages). Interestingly
enough, when fornication and drunkenness became sins, gluttony also
became a sin (but not eating)…because fornication, drunkenness, and
gluttony share the same foundational evil: The sinful principle behind all
three is yielding control to the body, which is the same principle
behind democracy (!), which is the antithesis of Godly order and is an
abomination to God.
Adam’s descendants disappointed
God so He drowned them all but Noah and his family. Noah became the second
patriarch of the human race. He, too, was issued the Old Commission. However,
his descendants also failed to please God – except for Abraham. Instead of
drowning everybody again, God decided to let His carnal people live on their
own – without Him. Therefore, God divided humans into two groups, His people
and pagans. God no longer was the Father of all men; He was now the God of the
Hebrews – Abraham and his descendants. Accordingly, only the Hebrews
– God’s people – were given spirit life (see chapter D8 pages 2 & 3). All
of the pagans had only the first birth and were therefore merely body and soul
instead of body, soul, and spirit like God’s people who are born-again of the
Spirit. The rest of the chapter is filled with examples that show how –
throughout the Old Testament – God tried to get His people to glorify Him by
submitting to His authority and to the authority of the rulers He put over
them. All too often God’s people angered Him by carnally doing that which was
right in their own eyes. By showing how and why Christians became different
from pagans, this chapter helps straighten out many modern doctrinal
inconsistencies.
CHAPTER EXCERPTS:
The Bible says God’s people
in the wilderness continually provoked Him by being stiffnecked
and rebellious (Dt 9:6,7).
And the Lord put their rebellion in His Book to benefit us, so let’s look at
some examples of authority and rebellion. And when you read these examples in
the Bible I want you to seriously consider what they reveal about the type of
ruler God is. By today’s standards He is too demanding, too unforgiving, too
irritable, too tyrannical, and too violent. If you don’t get to know and accept
the real Him now, you will likely reject Him at the Second Coming just like
most of His people did at the First Coming.
. . .
And while the above explanation of the saints’
actions is helpful in demonstrating what carnality is, it still falls far short
of showing why the Bible says the carnal mind is enmity/violent hatred against
the authority of God. No, I said that wrong in my zeal to keep submissive
obedience to authority in the picture: The carnal mind is not enmity against
the authority of God; it’s more personal than that: it’s enmity against
God Himself. Let me make the distinction clear. Authority is a big deal because
the issue in the Bible is authority. The issue in the Bible is not God,
and the issue in the Bible is not the existence of God. Those are not
issues; those are merely facts that are known by all of God’s children (Ja 2:19). The issue
is authority because God is no longer the only king. There is another king,
Satan, whose objective is to overthrow the type of orderly, dictatorial,
hierarchical authority God established in His household. Therefore authority –
how you view authority and react to it – will demonstrate which king and which
kingdom you prefer. True love is choosing God’s way. Violent enmity against God
is choosing equality. When the war is over and King Satan is gone, the issue
will no longer be authority because there will be but one King again.
. . .
Anyway, when God’s
people in the wilderness turned their yellow backs to the grapes of Eshcol, the Promised Land, and their duty to God to submit
to Moses’ leadership, they then took the next logical step according to the
carnal mind: They came up with a form of government more to their liking – one
that would do what they thought was right. This form of government gave
the power to the people and therefore made the “head” of the government a
servant of the people. Obviously I’m talking about the form of government that
centuries later would be called democracy. This government was formed from the
majority consensus of God’s people (Nu 14:1,2) and was the Natural
product of the carnal mind doing what it thought was best for physical life on
planet earth. They knew in the course of human events that this form of
government was right because its goodness was so readily apparent, so self-evident
to all Reasonable men. Therefore these well-intentioned Christians whose
motivation was the safety of the women and children (v.3) decided to
choose a new leader whose mandate would be to carry out the will of the people
(v.4). The Biblical Christians were such a small minority that all they
could do was rend their clothes, fall on their faces
before the majority, and beg them to view the situation from God’s perspective
(vv.5-9). The majority of Christians listened to these Bible arguments,
realized that these fanatics were so narrow-minded that they’d never come out
into the “real world” and listen to Reason, and reluctantly and prayerfully
concluded that – for the good of the church – Moses, Aaron, Joshua, and Caleb
should be executed on the spot (v.10) in order to save all their lives.
At that point the entire congregation saw the glory of God appear in the
tabernacle (v.10). Suddenly everybody fearfully remembered Nu 12:8 and had to
go to the bathroom, but Moses got to his feet and went over to see what the
Lord wanted.
This was a big moment.
Would the Lord tell Moses that democracy was a Godly form of government and to
submit to the will of the majority of Christians? No, He wouldn’t (to the
ideological disgust of the modern church). One of the doctrinal failings of New
Testament Christianity is to miss the critical importance of this episode and
therefore to not learn from it. I’m not just referring to the obvious and
undeniable attempt by Christians to institute a democratic form of government;
I’m also referring to how God responded to this attempt to have a Christian
democracy. (And because modern Christians have missed the significance of this
dramatic ideological showdown between dictatorship and democracy, they also
don’t see it repeated throughout the Old and New Testaments.)
. . .
It is important to
stress that these men honestly had no idea they were sinning. The carnal mind
does not make you wake up one day and say, “I want to do evil.” That is not
what happened to Lucifer and that is not the way Satan is today. The carnal
mind is not evil because of what it thinks. The fruit of the carnal mind
is not bad or evil when viewed on its own. It is only bad and evil when it is
viewed from the broad perspective of ideology, concepts, and principles. Only then
can we understand that carnality is made bad by the issue of authority.
But not just any authority; carnality is only bad when viewed from the
perspective of God’s authority. It isn’t what the carnal mind
thinks; it’s the fact that it is thinking independently of God. It is a
usurpation of God’s authority as the one and only God, the one and only Head.
For that reason I am not writing a Christian novel whose success depends on
your liking it. I am writing a Bible study so when you come
across something you don’t like or something that differs from modern
traditional Christian doctrine you’ll have the opportunity to handle the
situation like Moses: “Let’s see what the Lord says about this.” If that is
your reaction you are demonstrating two qualities necessary for the development
of discernment – humility before the authority of God and His word, and discipline,
which is needed to overcome the Natural inclinations of the old man. For
example, I don’t despise democracy (and the principles upon which it is based)
because I think it is evil and abhorrent; I despise it only
because I have chosen sides in this war. My values, beliefs, doctrines, and
life are not based on what I think, want, or like; and I do not concern myself
with whether something is right or wrong: I simply find out what the Lord says
and accept it as what “my side” believes in and fights for. There are two
opposing kings, two opposing kingdoms, two opposing armies, and two opposing
ideologies in this war. I have chosen the Lord’s side. That means I have chosen
the side of the Dictator Who wants to do the thinking and Who
wants to decide what to do and Who wants to decree what is right and what is
wrong. The side I’ve chosen requires me to suppress myself daily. If I don’t
like that I can always go over to the other side where Satan’s religion
encourages me to develop my Reason rather than stifle it, to express myself
daily. The Lord’s side requires me to lose my identity; the Devil’s side allows
me to keep my identity.
The shame is that many Christians
would like to be on the Lord’s side but modern “Christian” doctrine is
misleading them into serving Satan even while they think they are serving
Christ.
It was just this sort of
blindness that afflicted Korah when he moved up from being a member of the body
to being another head. Nu 16:2 says he “rose up” against authority and made a
nice little egalitarian speech in Nu 16:3. (Notice the rising and the equality
in Is 14:13,14; Eze
28:2,5.) These men certainly did not think they were opposing God Himself
by resisting Moses, therefore when he told them they were not only taking too
much upon themselves (v.7), but were actually going against God (v.11),
they thought he was wrong. Imagine their surprise when God had the earth
swallow Korah, Dathan, and Abiram – and their families (vv.30-33). The
Christians who had prayed with and supported Korah
turned and ran (v.34). And then fire from God caught and consumed the
fleeing, screaming two hundred and fifty respected Christians who represented
the congregation (v.35). The next day the congregation, having thought
about the “rightness” of their cause overnight, “murmured” against their
authorities (v.41) and were not happy when the Lord showed up again (v.42)
because He was turning out to be a big disappointment Who always sided with the
bosses – whether the bosses were right or not. They simply couldn’t understand
it because, like most Christians in every era, they were carnal.
God decided to shut their opinionated mouths with a deadly plague that killed
14,700 of His special people (v.49). And then God made Aaron’s rod
blossom and told Moses to keep it as a reminder (Nu 17:10) of Ro 13:1,2. Christianity today has failed to understand that Ro
13:1,2 is better and more helpful than Aaron’s rod because the rod was but a
silent token whose meaning – as we shall see – was quickly forgotten.
One of God’s prophets,
Balaam, told pagan King Balak up on a place called Peor, what he had to do to defeat God’s people – who had
been invincible up to this point because God fought for them: God’s people
could only be defeated from within. Only if they displeased God would He allow
them to be defeated by their enemies. So King Balak had to figure out how to subtly introduce leaven into
the Hebrews’ lives by making them do that which was right in their own eyes
instead of faithfully submitting to God’s leadership. Much to the dismay
of good men like Moses and Phinehas, the whoredom of Peor was a terrible success. Because of the fruits of Peor, God’s people again erred by building the unauthorized
altar, Ed. This is used as a lesson to show, again, that we should be servants
who do what we are told rather than independent agents who come up with “good”
ideas on our own.
CHAPTER EXCERPT:
At any rate, we need to
be more like King Jehoshaphat for the two reasons in 2 Ch 17:3,4: First, his Christian walk was proper because he
lived it by consulting God through His word. Second, he avoided the ways of our
old friend Balaam from Peor. It is quite possible
that Jehoshaphat erred and allowed the four high places to remain because, in
spite of the fact that he wanted to avoid the whoredom of Peor
(and was generally successful in doing so), he just didn’t understand how Ed
could be bad and didn’t understand how the four could be bad. That should
illustrate how subtle and deceiving our carnal minds can be. We truly do have
to develop a servant’s mentality and hang on our Lord’s every word in order to
more perfectly know His will, and in order to understand that the whoredom of Peor is a big problem for Christians today – and its
subtlety is ruining the church from within.
CHAPTER EXCERPT:
We
need to realize none of the mistakes mentioned in this and in the previous
chapters was committed by stupid Christians. Saints who thought they were
serving the Lord committed them, saints who were no different from you and me.
These mistakes were made because the realities and events of everyday life
caused our brethren to take their eyes off Christ and the Bible and instead to
focus on the events themselves. We must never allow that to happen. We must
always have some part of our minds objectively analyzing events in order to
find and understand the Biblical concepts and principles behind them. And then
we must have what it takes to walk by faith, not by sight. You and I have
already used some of the events in the Bible to develop and practice our
ability to objectively and Scripturally evaluate the
actions of Old Testament saints. We are not condemning them; we are learning
from them. As we move through the rest of the chapters in this section we shall
continue practicing discernment by Scripturally
evaluating the actions of Christians about whom we have read in our studies of
world history. We are going to see why they made the decisions they made and
see if we think they were the Biblically-correct decisions, and in the process
gain a better understanding of world history from a Christian perspective. By
the time you finish this book you will understand how important it is for us to
use discernment because you will see how the world-shaping errors of our carnal
Christian ancestors down through history compounded and produced Western
civilization and the unscriptural doctrines in our so-called “Bible-believing,
Bible-preaching, Bible-teaching” churches.
This chapter uses
Alexander the Great, the Greek philosophers, King Herod, the Maccabees, and
early New Testament era Christians to show what philosophy is, why the New
Testament warns us about it, and how it began to leaven Christianity.
CHAPTER EXCERPT:
The “canon” of philosophy essentially
closed with Aristotle. All other philosophers – Roman, medieval, and modern –
merely used the tools and rules established by the Classic Greek philosophers.
Later philosophers would coin a catchy phrase every now and then, and they
would apply philosophy to other disciplines such as economics, but there was
nothing they could add to philosophy: The Greeks had already defined it and
established the rules. In a nutshell then philosophy is not
letting religion of any kind influence what you think or do. That’s it.
Nothing else is philosophy. When someone says, “My philosophy is to keep a low
profile”, it’s just a colloquialism; strictly speaking he is not using the term
correctly unless he actually means he didn’t consider the Bible. And if someone
says, “He sticks to his religious philosophy”, the two words are oil and water;
they don’t mix. When the Bible uses philosophy, vain deceit, the tradition
of men, and the rudiments of the world as synonyms in opposition to Christ
(Co 2:8), it is referring to Greek philosophy and all of its
derivatives. It is not referring to “false” philosophy; there is no such thing
as false philosophy or true philosophy – philosophy is philosophy. And just as
it doesn’t matter if a carnal idea is good or bad because anything carnal is
bad, any philosophy is bad because by definition philosophy must be carnal or it’s not philosophy. That’s not a secret and it
never has been. The following are all synonyms for philosophy: Anything
secular such as secular thought or writings; anything scientific or anything
having to do with science, because science is knowledge arrived at by
deliberately philosophical, secular, non-religious means; Reason; Carnality;
doing that which is right and good in your own eyes; living by your own
counsel; the Natural mind; Nature; Nature’s laws; humanism; the Classics; the
Enlightenment; the Age of Reason; the whoredom of Peor;
the leaven of the Pharisees that results in tradition and false doctrine; the
doctrine of devils; the ideology of Satan; the spirit of antichrist; enmity
against God; rebellion; witchcraft; and a damnable heresy.
This shows how Saint
Augustine and his famous book, The City of God, subtly made philosophy,
or Reason, part of the scholarly circles of Christianity – particularly when
the Roman Catholic Church made Augustinian doctrine the foundation of
Catholicism.
CHAPTER EXCERPTS:
The influence of Greek philosophy on the
educated classes of these early centuries and the intellectual contempt with
which they held Christianity cannot be overstated. Christianity’s dependence
upon faith in the unseen, belief in the unseen, and obedience to an unprovable Bible was nothing but contemptible, mindless
superstition to those who had adopted Greek Reason as a way of life. In
religion you were bound by doctrine, which meant you had to learn “God’s truth”
and then live by it. A man of philosophy, however, could escape the blinding
rules of religion and live by the Natural truth revealed by his sincere and considered
opinion. That was Augustine’s “considered opinion” as a youth. When he matured
his opinion of religion would change – and he would change religion.
. . .
Because he was
so instrumental in making Christianity a Reasonable religion and in rescuing it
from the “narrow-minded dogmatic literalism of old-fashioned superstition”,
Augustine is considered – along with Aquinas – one of the two greatest
Christian thinkers in history. The encyclopedia says about Augustine, “His mind
was the crucible in which the religion of the New Testament was most completely
fused with the Platonic tradition of Greek philosophy; and it was also the
means by which the product of this fusion was transmitted to the Christendoms of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.”
When the Roman Empire
collapsed Europe plunged into lawless chaos. The only framework of order was
the rickety structure of the young Roman Catholic Church, which grew and
emerged as the foundation of Western civilization. Upon this foundation Europe
was built. But ideological divisions quickly caused problems: Non-Catholic Christians
differed with some of Rome’s Augustine-based doctrines; some Catholic scholars
began to want more of Augustine’s Greek philosophy openly made part of
Christianity; and scientific advancements and discoveries seemed to prove the
value of making Reason part of society.
CHAPTER EXCERPTS:
While it is true that
many in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church were ignorant of the Scriptures
that is not to say they were poorly educated. On the contrary, theirs were
easily some of the best minds in Europe. They were mentally far, far above the
masses. That, combined with their extreme wealth and power, insulated and
isolated them from normal society, which resulted in their living dual lives.
In public they were variously pious, aloof, arrogant, humble, and magisterial
as situations warranted. In private they simply did whatever they wanted. They
got drunk, they stayed up all night, they slept around the clock, they
tinkered, they read, they hunted, they had huge parties, they murdered people,
they traveled, etc. And, like most men in history with great power and
authority (such as David and Solomon), they developed huge sexual appetites
that were – for the good men of history – difficult to control, and – for the
bad – something to be indulged. These clerics simply did anything and
everything. And they did it with impunity.
The upper echelons of
the Roman Catholic hierarchy were an elite group; they were above the law. They
would burn common people at the stake for voicing heresies and then retire to
the drawing room with a group of their peers to seriously discuss the very
heresies for which they executed others. They circulated books, manuscripts,
and papers among themselves that concerned philosophy, heresy, government,
religion, sexual practices, the economy, trade, foreign religions, etc. They
were minds, strong minds that examined, discussed, and became intrigued
with a topic – only to become bored with it later. Because they had strong
minds and walked on an intellectual plane, they could handle principles,
concepts, and ideas, including those that were associated with heresies. But
the common people lacked those mental abilities. If a commoner learned about a
heresy he couldn’t control it. He invariably opened his stupid mouth and spread
the leaven to others like him in society where it often took root because the
masses were incapable of mentally dealing with and properly analyzing
principles and doctrines.
. . .
Intellectuals
like Abelard who agreed with philosophy were a minority that conservatives
derisively called “Rationalists” because they used secular humanism/Reason to
point out “problems” in the Bible that offended Reason – such as miracles.
Conservative scholars such as St. Bernard of Clairvaux
(1090-1153) warned that Christian Rationalism would grow and eventually become
a problem. He said Rationalism was a subtle danger because any so-called
“neutral” pursuit of knowledge, such as secular scholarship, Christian
Rationalism, and science, is not neutral; it is actively pagan and
contrary to the lordship of Christ and the glory of God. We’ll see why Bernard
was correct in a few minutes.
. . .
Today it is difficult to
appreciate just how radical and offensive philosophy was. After all, in
just a few pages we have easily covered material that it took European
Christians centuries to digest. There are two reasons philosophy took so long
to work its way into the fabric of the lives of Western Christians: First,
philosophy truly was radical to people in general and Christians in particular
who had, since time began, lived under authority. People simply were not
supposed to think or act on their own unless they were an authority and had
that prerogative. And even Christian authorities themselves who had no earthly
authority over them – like King David – were still required to check with God
before doing anything to ensure that they didn’t offend Him. Christians simply understood
how arrogantly evil it was to do something without proper authority, to step
out of line, to leave your place in society, to be a foot that acted without
consulting the head. Second, philosophy remained an academic concept within the
exclusive and carefully protected domain of scholars…until it began to be
passed on to the unthinking masses – most notably and dramatically by Martin
Luther. Scholars were careful with Reason because they had the mental capacity
to realize how truly revolutionary it was to the fundamental structure of
society. Lacking that mental ability to deal with concepts and principles, the
masses would respond to Reason by “knowing” on a gut level that it was right
and good because it “felt” so Naturally self-evident.
Rome found itself facing
doctrinal strife among its theologians who had differing opinions as to whether
pagan philosophy should be made part of Christianity or not. At the same time,
Europe was beginning to divide itself into various kingdoms/nations, and some
of those kings wanted to rule without interference from the Pope. Liberal
theologians, who approved of the Reason and “human rights” of the Greek philosophers,
supported these rebel kings. Conservative theologians, who believed Christianity
should not allow pagan philosophy to leaven doctrine, supported the old ways.
Political and religious circumstances backed the Pope into a corner and caused
him to order Saint Thomas Aquinas to officially blend Christianity and pagan
Reason (also called Natural Law until the mid 19th century), which made
doing what we think is right and good an approved way of “serving” God for the
first time in history. Aquinas was extremely successful: The tree of the
knowledge of good and evil suddenly lost its meaning; the whoredom of Peor lost its significance; and carnality ceased having to
do with thinking and doing things independently of God…and began having to do
with sex.
CHAPTER EXCERPTS:
After Aquinas combined Greek Reason and
Christianity, any Christian who utilized Roger Bacon’s carnal way of thinking
by saying, “Oh, come on! God gave us brains and I think He expects us to use
them!” would be – for the first time in history – right! It would become such
an accepted way of thinking in the new Enlightened Christianity it would
undermine all authority, including the practical validity of the word of God.
For example, if a proper Christian said, “The Bible says we shouldn’t do
such-and-such” (which should have settled the issue), his Enlightened friends
increasingly replied with, “But what’s wrong
with such-and-such?!” With that reply his friends showed they had partaken of
the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: the true
standard in their lives had become what they thought was right and wrong, and they merely
rendered lip service to Thus saith the Lord.
We aren’t here to be independent heads all deciding what we think is right and
wrong; we’re here to be obedient servants for whom what God says is the
final authority and our immediate imperative.
. . .
One quick point:
Protestants frequently deride the Roman Catholic Church for incorporating pagan
things into Christianity like prayer beads, Xmas, eating fish on Friday, etc.
And yet the biggest and by far the worst pagan thing Rome made “Christian” was Reason.
Why no Protestant outcry? Because today we have just as many hypocrites and
vipers at the controls as there were in Christ’s day.
. . .
Aristotle had
idiotically said about government that the rule of popular law (people make the
laws) is preferable to the rule of any single person because the collective
good of the mediocre masses outshines even the brilliance and goodness of a
single great man. And he said the purpose of government should be to
promote the “common good” in accordance with Natural Reason (which in
democratic terms is defined as the majority). And he said the only
legitimate source of governmental authority is the people. Aquinas rejected Pv 28:2 and parroted
Aristotle by saying God made “Natural goodness” a part of all men
equally. That meant when you took equality into account, the majority
collectively would have more Natural goodness and wisdom than the minority. (If
you want to believe democracy is consistent with the Bible you should be
carrying the Revised Standard Version, which alone has a democratic (plural)
reading of Pv 28:2.) Aquinas accepted the theories of
earlier pagans who claimed the purpose of government was to promote the welfare
of the people, and he said a ruler of government was legitimate in God’s view
only as long as the majority of the people approved of him. If Aquinas was
right about God’s way being a democratic one, all of the following would mean
God’s support for David was hypocritical: Absalom’s
successful democratic campaign won the hearts and support of the majority (2
Sa 15:2-6); David knew the majority supported Absalom (2 Sa 15:12,13);
all the elders of Israel agreed that the murdering adulterer, David, must die (2
Sa 17:1,2,4); a vast Christian army was formed from all cities in
Christendom, from the city of Dan in the north to Beersheba in the south, to
overthrow and kill King David (2 Sa 17:11)! These pagan ideas about
government, society, and religion had been cautiously bandied about in
Christian Rationalist circles for centuries – but now they were God’s truth.
They were now part of Western civilization and part of our “Judeo-Christian
heritage.” The Modern Age, the Age of Aquinas, was here, and “progress” would
quickly follow. And while it was true that Reason was still in its infancy
among Christians, and that it would take another two hundred years to mature
and bear fruit, the very fact that it was now officially a part of society and
Christianity marks this as the beginning of the Age of Reason and the beginning
of Mystery, Babylon’s captivity of God’s people. And if we are in the Age of
the Gentiles, and the number of the Gentiles is 10, and the Babylonian
captivity in the Bible was 70 years, if you take roughly the year 1300 and add
10 times 70 equals 700 years to it, you get roughly the year 2000. Since the
year 1300 is just an approximation, and since we think the Second Coming of
Christ is imminent, all we know is that the Age of Reason/Babylonian captivity
won’t end until the Lord Jesus Christ returns, kicks democratic government out
of power, establishes a dictatorship, and sets us free by outlawing
Reason/carnality in no uncertain terms. And if His rule during the Old
Testament is any indication, He will again – at least at the violent beginning
of His reign – inflict some spectacularly cruel and unusual punishments on vast
numbers of His people to drive home, again, the same lessons we covered
in earlier chapters. Let them that have ears to hear, hear.
. . .
At times the Vatican thought it would be wise to endorse the works of
Thomas Aquinas in order to Rationalize Christianity. After all, philosophy and
Reason seemed to be the only way to salvage the Church’s credibility after Albertus Magnus’ failure showed that not all Catholic
doctrines could be proven with Scripture. At other times, however, it seemed
far too risky to officially adopt the very philosophical Reason that all of
God’s people had denounced since before the time of Christ. If Aquinas and his
work became official, it would be an enormous
doctrinal shift at a fundamental level: The Church would go from
anti-Reason to pro-Reason; from claiming a faith-based reliance on the literal
word of God, to a “more practical” reliance on theological scholarship; from a
conservative institution trying to preserve the Old-Time Religion, to a
“progressive” institution endeavoring to maintain “relevance” and “popular
appeal”; from a doctrine-based religion that denounced heresy and punished
heretics, to a “love-based” religion that embraced everyone and punished no
one. Today’s secular scholars who may not understand the above fundamental
changes can nevertheless recognize this epoch-changing historic shift by the
fact that the Vatican dramatically metamorphosed from an Augustine-based
religion into an Aquinas-based religion. For example, I mentioned on page H7-6
that the Augustine-based Dominican Order reorganized and became Aquinas-based.
That wasn’t done for no reason; it was because the Dominicans enforced
orthodoxy: they had been defenders of
Augustine-based doctrine (anti Reason, and pro literal interpretation), but now they were champions of Aquinas-based theology (pro Reason, and anti literal interpretation). This
momentous change from thus-saith-the-Lord-based
orthodoxy, to what-decideth-man-based theology was a
slow but inexorable process.
. . .
The work of Aquinas would revolutionize
world governments, revolutionize the world’s economy, create incredible
financial prosperity, revolutionize the structure of the family and of Western
society, make science a dominant if not necessary part of life, and cause
Christians to stop fighting wars to defend and spread Christianity and
instead begin fighting wars to defend and spread democracy. The
incorporation of Reason into society was the most dramatic and far-reaching
change in the history of civilization. In the past the direction of thought was
from God to man. God figured into everything and controlled everything. But now
God, religion, and the Bible were being replaced by Reason. The origin of thought
was no longer God, and man began to say and do many things in life with no
thought or consideration for God at all. The Age of Reason and the modern
Babylonian captivity of God’s people were now under weigh
with way on.
Educational institutions
multiplied across Europe, and Greek philosophy/Rationalism/Natural Law was
taught in all of them. But the Roman Catholic Church was not incorporating the
principles of philosophy fast enough for many educated Catholic priests and
laymen such as Calvin, Zwingli, and Ockham. Martin Luther, a Roman Catholic
Augustinian monk, was dedicated to the philosophic teachings of Saint
Augustine, and he used those teachings to justify his rebellion against his church
superiors when Luther’s demands for reform were ignored. Because Luther was so
popular with the ignorant masses, nationalistic noblemen who wanted Germany to
be independent from Rome manipulated the naive Luther into serving their
interests. More Enlightened Catholic priests used the tenets of the age of
Reason to break from Rome in order to start new denominations whose views of
the Bible, of Christianity, and of life were based heavily upon Greek Reason.
The Protestant Reformation was underway and it quickly began teaching that the
secular principles of philosophy, which had already been incorporated into
Christianity by Aquinas, should also be incorporated into government and
society. Secular governments and societies now began to appeal to
Christians.
CHAPTER EXCERPTS:
Luther continued to write and turned out
some pretty good hymns. His writings were later used when a Protestant
denomination was started that used his name. His writings have let us know
that, while he was successful at dodging the law, he couldn’t hide from Satan.
Presumably because Luther’s doctrines were so pure, Satan personally declared
war on this fat outlaw, appeared several times to him
and began to harass him. The Bible tells us Christ’s disciples had trouble
dealing with devils, but Martin Luther wrote that he did not. When Satan
launched a fart at Luther, Martin beat him at his own game by sending him
running “mit einem furz” (with a fart). (Whether it was because Luther’s
considerable girth greatly amplified the sound and frightened the Prince of
Darkness or if his gas terribly offended Satan’s snoot the Protestant leader
didn’t record.) But Satan did not give up easily. And Luther quickly found
himself earnestly contending for the faith – even when Satan began fighting
dirty.
Modern morality-worshipping Christians
who translated Luther’s accounts of these face-to-face battles with Satan saw
something in Luther’s writings that caused them to react with the cartoonish
absurdity of a woman who sees a mouse – their eyes grew wide and their hands
flew to their faces as they danced on tippy-toe and screamed in horror. (This
reaction is viewed with disdain by real soldiers of Christ who stand calmly,
unmoved and unshaken, secure in the knowledge that in Christ they have the
strength to handle even this crisis. They know the flighty, wimpy, immature
reaction of these shrieking parade-ground soldiers who have never left the comfort
of their padded pews shows they have not only never been in combat, they don’t
even know what this spiritual war is all about.) What did these tradition-bound
translators see in Luther’s writings that not only horrified them but also made
them decide it was better to lie than translate it correctly? It was just a
bunch of shit! You see, it wasn’t “ink” that Christian translators claim
Satan hurled at Luther and Luther threw right back – it was shit. The great
reformer said Satan would pick up some shit (which was presumably lying around
on the floor in Luther’s abode) and throw it at Luther in an attempt to defeat
him. Remaining undaunted though he was now soiled with shit (“bescheissen”), Luther, in the heat and fury of this
desperate combat with the Devil, scraped the splattered shit off of himself and threw it back. In response Satan mooned Luther
by baring his ass (“steiss”). (This makes Martin
Luther the only known Christian in history who has
seen Satan’s asp hole.) Luther, blood up now, told Satan to “kiss my steiss” and threatened to “throw him into my anus where he
belongs” and “scheiss in his face.” There were
multiple encounters, but one day Luther finally defeated the Devil by
threatening to take Satan’s own pants off of him, shit in them, and hang them
around Satan’s neck. It cannot be determined from Luther’s account if Satan was
wearing the same trousers that he, in the earlier encounter, pulled down in
order to moon Luther, or if it was a different pair. But we do now know that
Satan wears trousers.
Some people have felt that the drama of
these encounters and the fact that there were a number of them not only make
Luther a Christian hero, but also make David’s brief encounter with Goliath,
and Michael the archangel’s encounter with this same Devil (Jude 9),
pale in comparison. Other people think these encounters may indicate the
Protestant reformer was a low-life liar.
. . .
As this Augustinian prudishness spread,
Christians ignored their Bibles and decided to make it a sin if a girl married
before her twelfth birthday, and a boy before his
fourteenth birthday. (The Bible neither discourages nor makes it a sin to
become one of Christ’s brides at any age.) When explorers later sailed
around the world they found that other societies in warm climes went naked some
of the time. Teaching these “naked savages” that nudity was sinful became an
immediate and major concern of missionaries. This self-righteousness peaked in
the Victorian era as Christians heaped more tradition on top of what they’d
already gotten from Ambrose, Augustine, and Luther: Hypocritically thinking the
appetite for food was good but the appetite for sex was sinful, Protestants
decided even food could cause their lust to conceive at the dinner table if
they permitted the tasty limb of a chicken to be called a “leg”, so they coined
the term “drumstick.” Then every time they said “drumstick” they congratulated
themselves for not being “carnal.” Once this “doctrine” was accepted,
Christians – who are normally loath to apply the principles behind true
Bible doctrines – demonstrated an inventive zeal for morality by applying it to
other things in life: Christians with money who could afford upholstered
furniture demonstrated their moral superiority over Christians with “bare” or
“naked” furniture by putting a skirt of fabric on their chairs to “decently”
cover the sinfully-seductive curve of the wooden legs. Christians with money
also covered their bodies with layer upon layer of fine fabric and jewelry and
showed it all off by taking Sunday strolls or drives and made condescending
remarks about the naked and grimy poor out toiling in the fields, because the
elite thought God made it easier to avoid sin if you had money. But He made it
just the opposite. Another example of the widespread Christian acceptance of
morality as an authority in all matters of faith and practice can be found in
the Presbyterian minister, Sylvester Graham (1794-1851), who invented the plain
“graham cracker” because he believed spicy and heavily-seasoned foods sinfully
increased sexual desire. And the moral Christian, John Kellogg (1852-1943), one
of the founders of the breakfast cereal company, preached that all sexual
activity was sinful carnality, even between husbands and wives (in over 40
years of marriage he never had sexual intercourse with his wife); and he became
a vegetarian because he believed eating meat heightened the sinful desire to
masturbate, which he called “Onanism” after Ge 38:8-10, which is covered in chapter
D11. The zeal for morality would produce many “Crusaders against Carnality”,
such as Anthony Comstock (1844-1915) who described himself as a “weeder in God’s garden.” He founded an organization to prevent
the public from transgressing against the rapidly-growing number of “moral
sins”, and in 1873 he succeeded in having the U.S. Congress pass a law against
the sin of sending through the mail material that might inflame the prurient
passions and imaginations of people by depicting or describing nudity or sexual
acts. Sinful material that needed to be weeded from God’s garden included
marital manuals and medical textbooks on anatomy, which started the long debate
over what is “pornography”, an argument that was settled by creating a “standard”
that was a blend of ever-changing morality and public opinion: “I’ll know it
when I see it.” In that way “sins” in Martin Luther’s day were different from
“sins” in the Victorian era and were different from “sins” today – because they
are based not on what the Bible says but on the shifting sands of pagan
morality and man becoming the authority in all things by “knowing” good and
evil when he sees it.
The real historical significance of
Martin Luther wasn’t his doctrine. After all, most Christians don’t care about
doctrine, which is why they prefer morality – you don’t have to study the Bible
to learn the latest morals. Luther was important because he showed society –
indeed, he inspired society – how to act. The Greek philosophers and Augustine
and Aquinas had taught the elite in society how Reason can justify rebellion.
Until now history had seen only a few instances of minor rebellion among the
educated – such as when Emperor Louis IV and William of Ockham used Aquinas to
justify their rebellion. And if commoners rebelled – such as the Peasant’s
Revolt – it was always a relatively small number whose action was disapproved
of by most of the rest of the masses. Martin Luther is the one who took “just
cause rebellion” out of the scholarly realm of philosophic principle and made
it – from that day forward – a part of morality. And that gave it to the masses
who don’t want to have to read, think, and study in obedience to commandments
like 2 Ti 2:15; they just want to know by letting their
“conscience be their guide.” By his very public example Martin Luther did more
to make Reason a part of morality than any other person.
A religious dispute with
the Pope caused Catholic King Henry VIII to split from the Catholic Church.
Afraid that religious fervor might cause English people to overthrow the
government and restore Catholicism, Henry and his successors gradually made
government and society more secular: The old Catholic religious holy days were
transformed into secular holidays; statues in public places of people in the
Bible were destroyed and replaced by secular statues of governmental, literary,
and military leaders; religion was taken out of the public schools; and public
plays, which had always had religious themes, were replaced by secular plays written
by young newcomers like Shakespeare. When King James ascended to the throne of
Britain he very much disliked the way his four predecessors had secularized
government and society. And he disapproved of the way certain elements of
Enlightened Protestantism were using misguided religious zeal to promote Reason
as the foundation for government, economics and commerce, education, doctrine,
and social and family life. For example, Enlightened Protestants wanted to
redefine monarchy as an evil, sinful form of government, outlaw it, and give
the king's power to the people. They wanted the ruler to become a public
servant who carried out that which was right in the eyes of the common masses.
They believed in the collective wisdom of individual idiots and valued the
opinions of the ignorant masses. An ideological battle raged: Some believed
kings ruled by divine right ever since God established monarchy as a legitimate
and non-evil form of government when He put Saul, David, and Solomon and their
heirs on the throne; and some believed the Greek philosophers’ doctrine of
Equality made it evil for any monarch to rule over many subjects/servants who
were just as good as he was. They wanted the masses promoted from subjects
to citizens whose opinions became their ruler’s basis for right and
wrong as he carried out the will of the people. King James’ attempts to make
Christianity more a part of life in Britain included the production of the King
James Bible, the Biblical education of the clergy, the restoration of religious
figures to government office, the creation of a new British national flag with
a stylized cross of Christ on it to symbolize the nation's intent to glorify
God (that flag is still the British flag today), and the reformation of the
bankrupt economy he had inherited from Queen Elizabeth. When James died, his
son, Charles, became king and tried to continue James’ efforts to
re-Christianize government and society. But Oliver Cromwell, a radically
Enlightened Puritan who had risen to prominence in Parliament, organized an
army, defeated the king’s forces, beheaded Charles, and made Reason the supreme
law of church and state. After Cromwell, British monarchs became increasingly
powerless and Parliament (which is French for “the people speak”) became increasingly
powerful.
CHAPTER EXCERPTS:
Calvin was a man of intelligence, integrity, and
courage. Those three attributes allowed him to understand philosophy’s
foundation of equality (which Aquinas had made Christian), realize there were
areas in Protestantism and in society that contradicted God’s Natural Laws, and
decide to make changes to Christianity and to all of Western civilization.
Calvin believed the flaws in the young Protestant denominations were impeding
the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth. One of the most ungodly aspects
in Christianity, Calvin decided, was that bishops and elders had ruled the
churches ever since the Apostles (1 Ti 5:17; He 13:7,17,24).
He believed that directly violated God’s Natural Law of Equality that had been
discovered by the pagan philosophers, and was convinced he needed to make all
churches democratic. And, of course, Calvin for the same Reasons decided the
dictatorships of kings like David and Solomon were evil and inequitable, and
that the governments of all countries needed to be made democratic in order to
conform to the self-evident will of God. That sounds like a larger task than it
actually was: Remember, all of Christianity had
already been leavened with philosophy for about 350 years, which is why Calvin
had been required to learn philosophy. So all he needed to do was come
up with a way to present the evidence to Christians that authoritarian civil
and ecclesiastical governments were inequitable according to Reason. Because
most Christians were ignorant of the Bible and therefore had no choice
but to use their carnal minds to evaluate Calvin’s clear explanations of
Greek philosophy, it was Natural that Calvin won large numbers of converts,
which he considered to be proof God was blessing his efforts.
Calvin
settled in the Protestant and democratic city-state, Geneva, and quickly
organized it into a militant and highly-effective training ground for
Christians from abroad who were, upon completion of their studies, sent back to
their own countries to gain more converts. His “Reformed Protestantism” spread
to France (Huguenots), Scotland (Presbyterians), England (Puritans), America
(Pilgrims and Congregationalists), Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Poland, and
many other countries. He even started a panel of arbiters that, as a supreme
court, settled religious problems from other countries, and Geneva came to be
called the Protestant Rome. His main teaching institution was the Geneva
Academy. Another successful proselytizing tool was his Geneva Bible Version,
which was published in 1560. It was a study Bible with many marginal notes
explaining Scripture from an Enlightened viewpoint.
Calvin’s plan was to establish a grassroots program of international
evangelization that would Enlighten more and more
Christians until they grew numerous enough to become effective political forces
in their countries in the hope of eventually replacing monarchy with democracy.
His proselytizing machine in Geneva was very efficient at making Reasonable men
“experts” on Christianity without having – or needing – a complete
understanding of the Bible.
Calvin’s plan was so successful that over the next two
centuries wherever Calvin’s “Reformed Protestantism” was in the majority, such
as America, Scotland, and Switzerland, democratic governments in both church
and state were quickly forged. (The only Protestant denomination in the
thirteen American colonies that was not immediately infected by “Reformed
Protestantism” was the Church of England: All other Protestant denominations
adopted the Calvinist doctrine of establishing democratic governments in both
church and state.) And wherever denominations (Catholic, Lutheran, Church of England) that had not yet accepted Calvin’s
philosophy were in the majority, such as in England, Germany, France, Spain,
and Italy, governments of church and state remained authoritative. To help make
my point about Calvin’s impact on Western civilization I’ll use some quotes:
American historian George Bancroft said, “He that will not honor the memory and
respect the influence of Calvin knows but little of the origin of American
liberty.” Noted German historian von Ranke said, “John Calvin
was the virtual founder of America.” And President John Adams said about
a related subject, “Let not Geneva be forgotten or
despised: Religious liberty owes it most respect.”
Make no mistake about it, the growing Hellenization of Western civilization that Aquinas
legitimized would have eventually resulted in the rise of democratic
institutions even without John Calvin. But in practice Aquinas merely allowed
scholars to use Reason without a guilty conscience. Those scholars then taught
John Calvin. And Calvin went beyond merely recognizing that society and
religion had “ungodly” inequities in them; he actually implemented an effective
grassroots system that would apply the doctrines of philosophy to society,
governments, finance, churches, and schools all over the world. The brilliance
of Calvin’s method was he didn’t just use military conquest to spread philosophy
like Alexander had done, and he didn’t just use scholarly discussions to spread
philosophy like Aquinas had done: Calvin tapped into the religious zeal of
Christianity. He turned the spreading of philosophy into a Christian crusade
and had Christians all over the world devoting their lives to his cause. More
than anyone else, Calvin is the reason so many Christians over the centuries
have believed it was part of their Christian duty to God to spread democracy,
overthrow dictatorships, establish freedom of religion, separate church from
state, separate church from economics, separate church from work, separate
church from school, promote women’s suffrage, promote women’s liberation, send
women out of the home into the workplace, and exalt morality until it displaced
the Bible as the foundation of modern Christianity.
The Age of Reason eventually conquered all
Christian denominations. In fact, “Reformed” Protestantism’s democracy would
become so much a part of “Christianity” that if you look at anti-Catholic
Protestant literature of the mid 1900s and earlier, you’ll find a frequently mentioned
“proof” that Catholicism was unchristian was the Vatican’s support for monarchy
and its opposition to democracy.
Calvin’s
most important success was in Great Britain, where his followers established a
democratic government patterned after that in ancient Athens – and then later
used Reason to hatch capitalism. Britain would export these humanistic
ideologies all over the world (most notably to the United States of America,
which would quickly become the world’s leading propagator of pagan philosophy
and democracy). Therefore, even though Henry VIII caused England to secede from
the religious and political authority of Rome, it was Calvin – through
Puritanism – who did more to revolutionize, to modernize, England than
any other person. He modernized it by bringing it out of the medieval world of
religious monarchs who presided over an agrarian-based economy, and by turning
it into a secular democracy with an industrial economy.
I am not saying Calvin intended to hurt Christianity.
He and his fellow Reformed Protestants wanted to make Christianity and society
more Christian by implementing the ideals of the Enlightenment. In practice,
however, they made Christianity more Pharisaical. By that I mean the principles
behind Bible doctrines were lost amidst the Calvinistic flood of morality.
Puritans wanted to help Christians become more disciplined and more holy with a
lot of well-intentioned rules, but the very Liberty they believed was part of
God’s Natural Law caused the church to gradually lose its ability to
effectively punish its own wrongdoers. In that and in many other ways
discipline slowly disappeared from Christianity, from the family, and from
society. As a result, today in our churches it is not only permissible to be a
leavened, slovenly, do-nothing Christian who is completely ignorant of the
Bible, but those kinds of people are actually welcome because they make the
church look larger and more “successful”, they are potential sources of
revenue, and it is stupidly assumed by preachers that the several thousand
sermons they preach during their lifetimes on a single topic – salvation – are
going to somehow help slovenly apostates become doctrinally sound pillars of
Christianity.
Again,
neither Calvin nor Calvinism nor any Christian denomination was trying to do
anything wrong. On the contrary, they were all trying to do what was right – in
the eyes of man. They denounced humanism – not knowing they themselves were
humanists whose religious zeal for Reason was instrumental in spreading
humanism to all of Western civilization. Calvin detested the half-baked
Christianity he saw in Roman Catholicism and in the Protestant churches; they
only partially and selectively embraced Reason, and he believed that was
as bad as partially and selectively embracing the Lord Jesus Christ and His
holy word. He intended to “reform” Protestantism. For centuries after Calvin’s
death, men continued finding inconsistencies between Reason and life, which
they rectified by doing that which was right in their own eyes: Monarchs had no
“human right” to rule over their subjects, so the people had to be set free by democracy; bishops had no human right to have
the rule over their flocks, so church governments had to become democratic;
democratic governments had no human right to control the economy, so capitalism
would put the economy into the hands of the people; husbands had no human right
to rule their wives, so Women’s Liberation would do what Calvin hadn’t yet thought
of; governments had no human right to dictate religious beliefs, so freedom of
religion would allow people to have no religious beliefs; governments had no
human right to ban same-sex marriages, so… And today we continue to use Reason
to “correct” – as we become aware of them – all of the inconsistencies that
have resulted over the centuries from our lack of Biblical discernment.
. . .
King James wanted to lead his subjects
into an era of Christian harmony in which the Bible was the sole authority in
all matters of faith and practice. One of the important early steps toward
religious agreement was to put the same Bible into everybody’s hands and to
demonstrate to the people that the king and his governors and bishops all
submitted to the ruling authority of God’s Book. His plan would eventually fail
because Christians were beginning to accept the Calvinistic notion that any
type of authoritative government was of the Devil. They did not want James’
ideal Christian nation because they believed it was unchristian. The church had
been divided into denominations for about a century and it was already
beginning to fall apart. In the Old Testament whenever God wanted to get His
nation of Israel back on the right track all He had to do was put a good
Christian on the throne. That Christian authority would then require his
subjects to live by the Bible. King James tried to be such a king. (I do not
believe God put James on the throne for that purpose; I think He put James on
the throne so He could use him to produce the King James Bible.) Anyway, from
Satan’s perspective the brilliance of democratic forms of church and civil
governments is that the people are in charge! In practice that means no
single man – no matter how doctrinally correct and Biblically motivated he may
be – will be able to make any meaningful and long-lasting changes in order to
reverse apostasy because the apostate/unsaved majority wants to continue to
have a secular nation. In other words, revival in this democratic age has been
reduced to the level of the individual; national revival is no longer possible
because the majority is made up of apostates and non-Christians. To run with
the majority during the race of life is to be mediocre all of the time and
wrong most of the time.
All societies, governments, economies, churches,
families, businesses, and militaries had been authoritarian for all of the
history of the world. The Age of Reason, however, revolutionized Western
civilization. Today Western civilization is doing what it honestly and
sincerely believes is right and good by spreading (with Calvin’s zeal) the
philosophic doctrines of the Age of Reason to Eastern civilization by
eradicating authoritarian forms of government, communism, and religious “intolerance.”
In short, the Age of Reason has been changing the world from authoritarian
(with its accompanying unselfish emphasis on being a contributor to the good of
the whole, the nation, the church) into a selfish world filled with people who
view themselves as individuals rather than as parts of a whole. This can
be seen in our churches: The emphasis is on proselytizing – nothing more. Pewsters never talk about Biblical doctrine; they talk
instead about social morality and conservative social issues. They never
discuss studying the Bible. They never know if others are growing or
backsliding, and therefore they never exhort and help one another doctrinally,
financially, socially, and emotionally, and they never help each other by
correcting, reproving, and rebuking. In short, Christians now think “love” is
being socially civil with each other. This complete and appalling lack of
interest in the spiritual welfare of one another is merely a Natural outcome of
a society in which self-interest, self-sufficiency, self-evidence, and
self-love have gained the ascendancy. All of the above have caused us to stress
a “personal relationship” with Jesus Christ, and we have experienced a
dwindling interest in the welfare of the church. I say again, our support for the
welfare of our churches consists mostly of religiously tithing and religiously
sitting in a pew two or three times a week. Way too many Christians are not
involved in serious Bible study at home. Because of that they are – at best –
children in their doctrinal understanding. And that is why they have no clue
that Christianity consists of much more than putting something into the
collection plate, sitting in a pew, and not using the “f” word.
One of the weaknesses of this book in its effort to
help you recognize and repent from apostasy and become a better Christian may
be that I don’t dwell more on the lack of a vital and important sense of
community, of unity, and of family in the modern church. And I’m not just
talking about local congregations; I’m talking about worldwide Christianity.
I’m talking about really understanding that we are members of
Christ’s body – and that our several duties (including learning the Bible,
maturing, helping our households learn and grow, helping our fellow pewsters learn and grow, resisting the leaven of wicked
Christians, and identifying and resisting the influences of the Age of Reason) must
occupy most of our time and energy because we are fighting for our everlasting
futures and have the privilege of carrying Christ’s baton and handing it to the
next generation. The baton we were given by previous generations is unclean;
let’s pass it on in better doctrinal shape for God’s sake.
The church, the body of Christ, has become merely one
of the many facets in our lives. It should not be that way; the church must
consume our lives. Most Christians aren’t even interested in the Bible,
in doctrine, or in the church. If you ask a fellow pewster
what his life’s work is he’ll probably say “tentmaker” or some other occupation. And if you then ask him what his interests and
hobbies are he’ll probably say “sailing” and “gardening.” Christianity isn’t
even in his top ten! It isn’t real to him; it is dead formalism; he’s not part
of a body at war – he’s an individual complacently wrapped up in self! He is a
product of the Age of Reason. That’s why he didn’t reply that his life and his
passion are the Lord and His church.
In this book I often say, A
man’s relationship with the Bible is an exact picture of his relationship with
Jesus Christ. Perhaps I should also stress, A
man’s relationship with the church is an exact picture of his relationship with
Jesus Christ (Mt 25:37-40). In spite of what we say with our lips, I
believe modern Christianity has failed to recognize and convey the critical
importance of the fact that we are the corporate body of Christ. I can’t help
but think of John Donne and something he wrote.
John Donne was an intellectual, an adventurer, a
theologian, and a poet who lived during the reign of King James. Donne is more
famous today for his poetry, which he stopped writing when he became a preacher.
King James, also an intellectual, traveled comfortably among Europe’s
intellectual, theological, and literary elite. And he became aware of some of
Donne’s theological writings, read them, and some time later urged Donne to
become a preacher. Donne did so and was by all accounts an excellent one. His
sermons are considered to be some of the best during a time (the reign of King
James) when England had some of the best preachers in its history. King James
was favorably impressed with Donne’s performance, made him a royal chaplain,
commanded Cambridge University to bestow upon him a doctorate of divinity, and
later made him dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. (As a youth Donne had
attended Cambridge before he converted to Protestantism (his parent’s reared him
Roman Catholic), and Catholics weren’t given degrees in divinity.)
During Donne’s lifetime there were several plagues
that struck London. The carts that came and went piled high with bodies were
accompanied by a man ringing a bell. The bell was to let people know the cart
was passing so they could come out and see who had died, pray, and let the men
know if they had another body that needed to be picked up. Therefore, preacher
Donne, who’d lost loved ones, including his brother, to the plague, penned the
following famous lines in his Devotions of 1623:
No man is an island, entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed
away by the sea, Europe is the less, [so it is that] Any
man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved with mankind. And therefore never send forth to know for whom the bell tolls; it
tolls for thee.
(You knew you had the plague when you got raised
reddish (rose-like) boils with a whitish line of tight skin around the base.
Many people carried flowers such as posies in their pockets to preserve their
health. The posies didn’t work and the bodies of the dead were burned. British
children of the time, therefore, invented the grim-but-real and
all-too-often-true playground rhyme: “Ring around the rosy; pockets full of
posies; ashes, ashes: We all fall down.”)
If a Christian brother is plagued with sin, or with
apostasy, or anything else – we, too, are afflicted; the church needs help.
Christ needs help – and we are His helpers. This business of actively helping
each other is important if the church is to survive. It is so important that to
not actively help our brethren is to be damned (Mt 25:45,46).
Even though I’m not going into the importance of
rediscovering our corporate relationship with the body of Christ and the
imperatives that result from it, I’m praying that once you fully understand how
apostate today’s Christianity really is you’ll mature rapidly to the point
where your love for Christ will cause you to fight for Biblical Christianity rather
than denominational Christianity. Your growth and experiences will help you see
more clearly that discerning members of our Household are our friends and
carnal ones are our enemies (Mt 10:34-39).
Any effort to determine how doctrinally sound and how
motivated Christians are will go over like a lead balloon. If a man were to
tell a preacher he and his family wanted to join the church and the preacher
asked, “Are you an expert on the Bible?…Oh, you’re
not. Well, based on your present routine of Bible study, how much longer do you
think it’ll take until you are a mature Christian properly armed for the
war?”, in all likelihood the man would take his family and go join another
church. But that’s exactly what we need: Let the slovenly apostates who don’t
want to grow go be a carnal influence in some other congregation! We’ve
got a war to fight and we don’t need people in our ranks who are not striving
to be soldiers.
Well, as usual I’ve started preaching. It’s a good
habit of mine. And I hope it is a habit with you, too. Let’s get back to 17th
century Britain.
This chapter documents
the problems the Pilgrims encountered when trying to establish Biblical
colonies in America that were populated by Christians who increasingly lived by
Reason; they depended more on what they thought was right rather than on what
the Bible said. This increasing Enlightenment was reflected in the early
Protestant institutions of higher learning such as Rutgers, Dartmouth, Yale,
Harvard, Brown, University of Pennsylvania, and Princeton, which all promoted
the secular Reason, or “rationalism”, or Natural Law of Greek philosophy and
discouraged “enthusiasm”, which was basing your thinking strictly on the Bible
instead of on Reason. This chapter also explains how the modern legal system
was founded on human Reason/Natural Law upon the teachings of men like the
Father of Modern Law, Sir William Blackstone. And the chapter deals with the
philosophers of the time (including Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, and Locke) who
had such a huge influence on the men who made Western civilization democratic
(such as Blackstone and the American Founding Fathers).
CHAPTER EXCERPTS:
The colonies grew, prospered, became
more secular, and adopted toleration. Colleges were set up. The language of
higher education was Latin, and students were required to study – you guessed
it – Latin translations of Greek philosophy. A “classical education” was
considered essential to becoming a “gentleman.” A gentleman’s education
included literature, art, aesthetics, mathematics, the newly emerging
scientific method and thought, poetry, and a heavy emphasis on “classical
letters”, which was Greek philosophy with its concept of “scholarly purity”
(secular thinking unencumbered by Christianity). Hence a gentleman was “a man
of letters.”
Yale, Harvard, and Princeton were some
of the early Protestant educational institutions. They had a symbiotic
relationship with Enlightened Protestantism. The Protestant denominations
thought the Age of Reason was a Godsend because they saw it as the main factor
in their split from Catholicism – and anything that got them out from under the
Vatican had to be good. Protestants believed Reason was a Christian
safeguard that would prevent them from becoming bound in religious superstition
like Catholicism, keep their doctrine pure, and establish a Christian society
that honored God by conforming to Nature’s Laws. To them pagan Greek Reason and
its resultant Enlightenment were the tools God used to free them from the Dark
Age mythology of pagan Roman Catholicism. And again, they did not
consider pagan Greek philosophy to be pagan; it was universal truth the Greeks
happened to discover first. That is why Protestantism placed such importance on
a “classical education” in its schools. Their schools, in turn, produced Enlightened preachers and pewsters
who viewed the dramatic changes in religion, government, and society as
positive trends that needed to continue. This in turn gave rise to even more
Protestant colleges such as Brown, Rutgers, Dartmouth, and the University of
Pennsylvania. All of these schools considered it their primary responsibility
to produce what had been called Rational Christians but were now referred to as
Enlightened Christians.
As education became a major shaper of
society the various curriculums were unified. This unification was started by
Thomas Clap, president of Yale. One of the supporters of this standardized
education was Francis Alison, a Presbyterian preacher who taught at the
University of Pennsylvania. Alison wrote, “I have seen proposals to unite the
several colleges on this continent in the same plan of education. This proposal
was made by Mr. President Clap and deserves serious consideration. There ought
to be more care taken to prepare boys than is now used in preparing them to
recite Virgil, Tully, and the Greek Testament, and sufficient understanding of
Latin, Greek, and English to write at least grammatically, if not elegantly.
Euclid’s elements and algebra should be taught carefully. And philosophy should
be a business of greater care than is now the common practice, because without
this branch of knowledge we shall be ill able to defend our holy Christian
religion; to understand the Rights of mankind; or to explain and enforce the
duties which we owe to God, our neighbors, and ourselves. I would, as a friend
of learning, recommend that you engage Gentlemen and gospel ministers of more
‘enlarged views’ to engage in this reformation. I will count it a favor to
receive, and will punctually answer your letters, especially while you are
active in promoting the Cause of Liberty, Virtue, and Learning.”
Princeton, which was founded in 1746 by
two prominent Great Awakening Protestant preachers, wanted to educate
Christians in order to produce “refined sentiments, noble principles”, and to
encourage both moderation and toleration by the inculcation of “Rational”
living: “The utmost care is taken to encourage Rational Christian behavior in
the students. Enthusiasm on the one hand, and profaneness on the other,
are equally guarded against and meet with the severest checks.” These
Protestant educational institutions all taught that Natural Law put democratic
authority in the hands of the people.
Satan’s
use of educational institutions to indoctrinate all future generations was
brilliant. He knew humans infected with Equality would Naturally
gravitate towards his ideology, overthrow powerful monarchies, and install
democracies. Educational institutions were just another way to spread the
forbidden-fruit ideology of the pagan Greek philosophers. First it was
scholarship that infected Europe’s elite – such as Augustine and Aquinas – with
Reason. Then educated religious leaders like John Calvin used grassroots
movements to “reform” religions, governments, and societies. And now formal
educational institutions train up our children to think and act according to that
which is right in their own eyes. When looking back at the humble beginnings of
Reason among the Greek philosophers and tracing its development over many
centuries into the most widespread and powerful ideology on the planet, we
can’t help but wonder how it could have been so successful at toppling powerful
monarchies in so many countries. For example, two of the last powerful,
Bible-believing kings on earth, James and Charles, who actively despised
democracy (which caused King James to write a book defending monarchy), were so
frustrated by their inability to stop the swelling influence of Enlightened
Christians that they jailed the Andrew Melvilles,
fired the Sir Edward Cokes, and allowed activist Puritans to move away to North
America and set up colonies – hoping the problem would go away. But it
didn’t…because the problem wasn’t really the people themselves – it was
the ideology/doctrine they believed. Understanding the power of
ideology, John Maynard Keynes wrote, “The power of vested interests [such
as powerful kings] is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment
of ideas.” He also said, “Ideas shape the course of history.”
When we reflect upon the history-shaping power of the people when their actions
are motivated by ideologies that are right in their own eyes, we get a glimpse
of why Ro 8:7 says the carnal mind is enmity against God; why God said
King Saul’s democratically-conceived good idea in 1 Sa 15:18-25 was
“rebellion” and “witchcraft”; why King David executed the young man for merely believing
it was OK to kill an evil monarch (page H2-7); why the Lord Jesus Christ says
tradition makes the word of God of none effect (Mk 7:13); and why it is
so important for us to learn correct doctrine. This spiritual war will be won
by those Christians who are motivated by what God says in His Book – not by
Christians who are motivated by morality, Reason, religious tradition,
conservative values, and what they honestly think is right.
. . .
Jean Jacques Rousseau
(1712-1778) was a philosopher and a superstar of his day. He was born in
Geneva, where his education consisted solely of studying Calvinist
philosophy-laden sermons and Greek biographies. As a young man he moved to France,
moved in with a woman who used up her wealth to pay for his continuing
education, renounced Calvinism, and converted to Catholicism. After a while he
abandoned the woman (who then died in poverty), moved back to Geneva, and
reconverted to Calvinism. Upon returning to France after a few years, Rousseau lived
with another woman and fathered five children from 1746 to 1752 – all of whom
he unapologetically gave to an orphanage as soon as they were born.
Rousseau taught that man in his ancient
Natural state was pure and was only corrupted by the societies he created. In
other words, since modern man is a product of his corrupt environment, modern
society needed to be changed by us corrupt men in order to produce the kind of
uncorrupt societies that even the “pure” men of antiquity couldn’t create.
(This idiotic, contradictory nonsense caused scholars, both Calvinist and
Catholic, to renounce him.) He said Natural Equality among pure men had been
upset when they invented agriculture, private property, and commerce – which
fed their self-interest/greed and made them want to increase their own wealth
at the expense of others. Therefore, the power needed to be taken away from the
corrupt ruling few and be restored to the pure masses where it belongs.
Accordingly, the purpose of government is to establish and protect that ancient
unspoiled Natural Equality (that produced evil men who created corrupt
societies).
Considering himself to be an expert on
rearing children, Rousseau taught that young children are pure and uncorrupted
and should be allowed to develop without “oppression” from their
society-corrupted parents so the children can mature “Naturally” – like the
evil, corrupt-society-producing men above did. (Yes, this famous philosopher who
had so much influence on modern society, was, like
many of the other famous philosophers, a very messed-up individual.) In
appreciation for his huge contributions to our Enlightened
free society, the United States named a peak and a mountain range after him.
Rousseau wrote The Social Contract
in 1762. It was built upon the assumption that Locke’s writings were valid. In this
work Rousseau said when the ruler breaks the “social contract”, the people have an obligation for the good of society to
rebel against him. The problem with any form of democracy, Rousseau realized,
was in the very majority that comprised it. He agreed with other thinkers, most
notably the outspoken Plato, who taught that most people are stupid. Rousseau
theorized that the moronic majority of citizens, whether they are “pure” or
corrupted by society, are so stupid they need a constitution and a system of
laws to keep them from self-destruction. He thought, because the masses tend
toward religious superstition, that claims should be made for the divine
inspiration of the constitution in order to encourage its unquestioned
acceptance by the dim-witted multitude. He also believed it was necessary to
find a substitute for anything you took from society. Therefore, when monarchy
was removed, in order to replace all the “God save the king” devotion and
loyalty, the government must promote loyalty to the State itself as if it were
a person. Rousseau is the father of modern patriotism, and today love for,
loyalty to, and devout pledges of allegiance to an inanimate flag have become
almost as common in the democratic world as love for, loyalty to, and devout
pledges of allegiance to an inanimate wafer in the Roman Catholic world – for
which Protestants call Catholics idolaters.
Early Enlightened
Protestant denominations refused to call the unEnlightened
Church of England “Protestant” because doctrinally and ideologically the Church
of England was slower to embrace the tenets of the age of Reason. When
Enlightened Protestants such as Puritans, Presbyterians, Calvinists,
Congregationalists, Baptists, and Methodists grew tired of the old-fashioned unEnlightened rule of kings James and Charles, and decided
they could no longer tolerate the old-fashioned unEnlightened
preaching of the Church of England, they migrated to Britain’s North American
colonies. But most Christians in the Church of England stayed home. One of the
reasons the British Christians in the North American colonies decided to start
a revolution against King George III, but the British Christians in Britain
decided not to rebel, was the unEnlightened Church of
England was the majority in Britain and the Enlightened Protestant churches
were the majority in North America. I say again – the sermons preached in
England were radically different from those preached in the thirteen North
American colonies. Were preachers basing their sermons on the word of God – or
on the tenets of the age of Reason? You will read actual sermons and will learn
why informed leaders in Britain blamed the American Revolution on the American
Protestant pastors.
CHAPTER EXCERPTS:
For a full Bible-based sermon, which
outlined the doctrinal position of the Protestant churches using chapter and
verse, we review the following famous and popular sermon preached by Rev.
Jonathan Mayhew in 1750. Mayhew was a graduate of Harvard College (which, as we
have seen took stern measures against any students who showed signs of
“enthusiastic Christianity”) and was the pastor of Boston’s West Church. Mayhew
is the one who invented the popular slogan used to clamor against the
government and to incite an armed rebellion, No taxation without representation! Our f-ing
father, President John Adams, called Mayhew a “transcendent genius.” After Rev.
Mayhew had everybody stand for the reading of Ro 13:1-7, he began his
sermon. Let’s open our Bibles and pull up a pew:
. . .
In order to see if this Harvard-educated
Protestant preacher really was the “transcendent genius” when it comes to the
Bible that President Adams said he was, let’s examine a single sentence from
his sermon that sums up his position: “And the apostle here we find to be not
in favor of submission to all rulers, but only to those who actually
rule properly by exercising a Reasonable and Just authority for the good of
human society.” The Pharisees were rulers of human society (Jn
3:1). Christ knew they were evil vipers (Mt 12:34) who transgressed
the Bible, worshipped God in vain, and were blind rulers leading human society
into the ditch (Mt 15:3,9,14) with false doctrine (Mt 16:6,12).
These evil rulers ruined the earthly lives of people, took people to hell with
them, and were full of extortion, excess, uncleanness, hypocrisy, and iniquity
(Mt 23:14,15,25-28). They murdered their own people, were of the devil,
and were liars (Jn 8:40,44,55).
Knowing how bad these rulers were, the Lord commanded the Christian multitude (Mt
23:1) to submissively and obediently do all and whatsoever the evil
rulers said (Mt 23:3). The second word in v.3 will tell you why it
was right for Christians to submit to evil rulers; the word therefore
refers to v.2, which says the evil rulers were to be obeyed because they
were in positions of authority. All authority is of God and is to be obeyed.
And then Christ went on to teach people to obey those evil rulers but
not to be like them. Obviously, Rev. Mayhew and his theology teachers missed/ignored verses like these that destroy the
arguments for and the revolutionary tenants of democracy. And so have all the
preachers and pewsters since. That is why Mayhew’s
false doctrine of just-cause clamoring and rebellion (which springs from covetousness) has survived, thrived, and
become gospel to all modern churches – including the one you attend. In order
to not be like evil preachers we must “search the Scriptures daily, whether
their teachings be so” (Ac 17:11),
because not only does God punish false prophets (Je 14:14,15), He also punishes those who
hear them (Je 14:16).
. . .
In order to be “fair”, we’ll also
examine the arguments of those unenlightened Christians who espoused
“enthusiastic religion” and rejected the new Rational
approach to the Bible. One such preacher who refuted the revolutionary spirit
of the Great Awakening “revival” was Rev. Jonathan Boucher. On this hot topic
he declared “to suffer grievances nobly is proper, while to disobey the
established government is simply to resist the ordinances of God.” His
preaching was offensive to the f-ing fathers, who had
nothing charitable to say about him. Boucher responded to the threats of
physical violence against him by preaching his sermons armed with a brace of
loaded pistols. But he was finally driven from the colonies in September 1775
by elements allied with the Sons of Liberty. In other words, the “freedom of
religion” so cherished by the majority of colonists only applied to Enlightened religion – and Christians like Rev. Boucher
who dared to preach the unpopular truth of the Bible and to call upon God’s
people to repent were openly despised, reviled, rejected, and not welcome in
America.
Rev. Boucher’s sermons used the same
Scripture commonly used to justify Enlightened principles,
but he tried to show that the verses did not do so. In addition to Ro
13:1-7, he used Ga 5:1 because
Republican Christians loved the fact that it says, “Stand fast,
therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ has set us free.”
There’s a preacher striding up to the podium now with a King James Bible and
two guns. That must be Boucher – let’s listen…
. . .
And now we’ll examine a report made by
British statesman Edmund Burke (Burke was an influential member of Dr. Samuel
Johnson’s inner circle. Johnson published his famous Dictionary in 1755,
and was the dominating literary figure of his time.) to
the House of Commons in 1775 about the ideological outlook of the colonists.
His report is a favorable one: He is saying the colonists, like the people of
England, are motivated by a love for Natural Liberty. But three things in his
report are of interest to us. One is his analysis of Protestantism – that its
true birthplace and foundation is philosophy, which makes it unalterably
opposed to monarchy (also called absolutism and arbitrary government). The
second is the zeal among colonists to learn the philosophical tenets of
Nature’s Law contained in Blackstone’s Commentaries. And the third is
the fact that morality and religion are believed to be the same. Let’s don our
powdered wigs and listen to this Parliamentary report:
. . .
By now you should have a
pretty good idea why so many sermons dealt with tenets of Greek philosophy and
used so many allusions to Greek and Roman mythology. And you should understand
that the foundation of Protestantism is the wicked belief that protesting,
resisting, clamoring, and rebelling against evil authorities such as the
Pharisees, Pharaoh, Herod, and Nebuchadnezzar is pleasing to God. In other
words, the main tenant of Protestantism – indeed, the very tenant that gave
Protestantism its name – came from Roman Catholicism’s acceptance of pagan
philosophy. Philosophy did not become the cornerstone of Western civilization’s
legal systems and governments by accident; it appeared first in the church.
Christians first heard (and still hear today) Enlightened principles from the
pulpit and took them to work with them. The role of Enlightened
preachers cannot be overstated in the development of Western civilization in general
and the American Revolution in particular. The Western fires of modern Freedom
were kindled by Ambrose and Augustine, kept alive by Abelard and Albertus Magnus, spread across Europe by Aquinas,
incorporated into Protestant political activism by Luther and Calvin, and used
by American Great Awakening pastors to start a Revolution that would produce
the greatest, most influential and far-reaching secular democracy in the
history of the world.
This chapter shows why
history is understating the facts when it calls Samuel Adams the Father of the
American Revolution. You will learn what really happened at the “Boston
Massacre”, who invented that name, and who turned that incident into the most
successful piece of propaganda in American history. You will learn about the
Sons of Liberty, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, Patrick Henry,
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benedict Arnold, and Ethan Allen. You will
learn about their character, the kind of Christians they were (or weren't), and
whether their motivation to participate in the American Revolution came from
the Bible or from Greek philosophy.
CHAPTER EXCERPTS:
History records that as the Sons of
Liberty poured out of their meeting in the Old South Church to go dump tea into
Boston harbor, John Hancock called out to them, “Let every man do what is right
in his own eyes!” On an ideological level that quote sums up the purpose of the
American Revolution, democracy, the Age of Reason, the British Civil War, the
Protestant Reformation, freedom of religion, Greek philosophy, Satan’s
rebellion, carnality, and equality. On a practical level, the fact that
Hancock’s quote is from a well-known Bible passage (Ju
21:25 among other places) and is quoted almost exactly, can mean only one
of two things: First, Hancock was deliberately giving anti-Scriptural advice to
men who already didn’t care about the word of God because they were heading out
to sin anyway. I consider that to be unlikely. Second, it is probable – based
on how we have already seen a popular Enlightened pro-rebellion Protestant
preacher take a verse that says you’ll be damned if you rebel and make it say
you’ll be damned if you don’t – that Hancock was taught in sermons that the
verse means it is good to use Reason by doing what we think is right. In
that case, Hancock, his preachers, and their fellow Christians had no interest
in the Bible because the negative meaning of the verse is even clear to “the
grazing multitude”, and because the Boston Tea Party was unquestionably the sin
of clamoring in Ep 4:31.
The Scriptures show how truly evil
basing our thoughts and actions on self
– carnality – is. When God had Jeremiah prophecy to His people that He was
going to punish them with death, destruction, and the Babylonian captivity, He
told Jeremiah what to answer when indignant Christians demanded to know what
their great sin was (Je 16:10). God
said their fathers forsook Him and walked after, served, and worshipped other
gods (Je 16:11). And then God
said something quite revealing (and shocking to today’s Enlightened
Christians): He said Jeremiah’s generation did worse than their fathers by living
according to their carnal minds in order to avoid hearkening to the word of
God (Je 16:12)! How could God say
being carnal is worse than worshipping and serving false gods? Because a person
who serves false gods is still a servant;
but a person who lives carnally, who lives according to that which is right in
his own eyes, has risen up from servitude by ascending to the seat of The Most
High by becoming another head like God – which is exactly what Satan did (Is 14:13,14; Ezek 28:2,6,8).
. . .
Sam Adams was interested in only one
thing – a revolution. He did not want fair representation in Parliament and,
like Oliver Cromwell and Martin Luther before him, only used the love of money
as an issue because it appeals to the masses without the need for intellectual
participation. (That’s why politicians always clamor about taxes during
election campaigns.) And, since “No pope and no wooden shoes!” had already been
used to fight taxes in England, on this side of the Atlantic “No taxation
without representation!” was thrown out to the masses as a rallying cry and as
a snappy little comeback. The following famous quote, issued under the rubric
of “no taxation without representation” is interesting for two reasons: First,
it reveals that revolution and democracy are founded on nothing but philosophy
and its imaginary Principles and Laws of Nature. Second, it mentions one of the
early “proofs” that the Bible contains
errors and therefore cannot be the inspired, inerrant word of God: Since
taxation by a king without the representation and consent of his subjects is
contrary to the “principles of government” in God’s Eternal Natural Laws, 1 Sa 8:10-19 (especially verses 15 and
17) had to be an error because it claims God Himself authorized kings to tax
and to take things from their subjects even
if their subjects didn’t like it. The famous and popular quote said: “My
position is this – I repeat it – I will maintain it to my last hour: taxation
and representation are inseparable. This position is founded on the Laws of
Nature; it is more, it is itself an Eternal Law of Nature…you will find
that taxation and representation were always united; so true are the words of
the consummate Reasoner and politician, Mr. Locke. I
before alluded to his book – I have again consulted
him – and find that he writes…so much in favor of my own sentiments. The words
of this great man are well worth your serious attention. His Principles are
drawn from the Heart…I know not to what, under Providence, the
revolution and all its happy effects are more owing, than to the Principles of
government laid down by Mr. Locke.”
The British position against rebellion,
although hypocritical because of that Christian nation’s own history of
rebellion and adherence to the Laws of Nature, was this time correctly based on
authority. When the colonies claimed that their charters made them
self-governing, sovereign states, the representative of the king replied, “The
King did not grant away his sovereignty over you when he made you a
corporation. When His Majesty gave you power to make wholesome laws, and to
administer justice by them, he parted not with his right of judging whether
justice was administered accordingly or not. When His Majesty gave you
authority over such subjects as live within your jurisdiction, he made them not
your subjects, nor you their supreme authority. The colonies are
part of the British kingdom because two independent authorities cannot exist
within the same state. [That’s the reason for Ro 8:7.] There is and can
be but one authority, and it must be obeyed. This doctrine is not new, but the
denial of it is.”
. . .
Thomas Paine
(1737-1809) was an Enlightened Protestant preacher and political philosopher.
He was a deep thinker of shallow character, a drunkard, an opportunist, and an
infidel who claimed to believe in a “supreme being” only because of the
religious climate of his day. He advocated a constitutional republic with a
strong central government and a progressive income tax to support socialized
welfare. He was hard-line Enlightenment but was too bright and too bold for
most people. He had a 20th century mind in an 18th
century body. He understood back then – and had the backbone to proclaim – that
the secular principles of the Enlightenment – Equality and Liberty – demanded
rights for women and an end to slavery. The f-ing
fathers couldn’t handle that; it was too much too soon. It is easy for us to
see today that Paine was right (based on the values of the Age of Reason), but
back then it required not only the acceptance of a principle, but the
ability to apply it to other things in order to build an Enlightened
society. Thomas Paine had that ability. The fact that the f-ing
fathers could not or would not seriously consider Paine’s ideas teaches us
something about them: Their rejection of what the Bible says, their rejection
of apostasy-revealing Biblical sermons of men like Rev. Jonathan Boucher, and
their rejection of the correct (according to the principles of the Age of
Reason) counsel of Thomas Paine about slavery and the rights of women, reveal
the American f-ing fathers to be true and faithful
adherents of neither the principles of the Bible nor the principles of the
Enlightenment – their overriding motivation was Self; they merely did what they
thought was right and good no matter what the Bible or the Greek
philosophers said.
In a way you could call Thomas Paine the
father of modern doctrineless Christianity. Augustine
opened the door by saying the Greek philosophers uncovered God’s truths by
using “Natural Theology” – which is truth derived from self-based contemplative
Reason rather than the Bible. Thomas Aquinas then formally incorporated Natural
Theology into Christianity, which is why all “theology” courses now utilize
Reason to explain the Bible (two things that are mutually exclusive and cause modern
Christianity to have so many contradictory doctrines and traditions). When
Natural Reason became equal to the Bible, Christianity polarized into two
groups: The first utilized both Reason and the Bible – while claiming the Bible to be the “sole authority”,
and is represented by the conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists today.
The second group almost completely ignored the Bible – even while giving it lip
service – and deteriorated into apostates whose Reason said God would be
pleased as long as they were “good people.” The liberal churches today
represent this second group. Many of the U.S. founding fathers practiced this
Natural Theology – although it was often called “deism” back then because they
weren’t sure what the true deity’s name might be. After Thomas Paine
jump-started the American Revolution with his famous pamphlet, Common Sense,
he returned to Europe where his Enlightened political
and religious agitating so offended French authorities that he was locked in a
French prison and sentenced to death. After the U.S. founding father, James
Monroe (whose close friendship with Thomas Jefferson, the 3rd
president of the U.S., would help him become the 5th president),
used political influence to have him released, Paine wrote (while living in
Monroe’s home) his infamous anti-Christianity/pro-modern-deism book, which he
appropriately titled, The Age of Reason. His book used examples from
Scripture (using Monroe’s Bible) to “prove” how unnatural, untrue, and
unreliable the Bible is, and it became – and remains – one of the most popular
Bible-bashing books among those who worship deities whose doctrines are based
on feelings. Paine wrote: “I sincerely detest it, the Bible – as I detest
everything that is cruel…Of all the systems of religion that were ever
invented, there is none more derogatory to the Almighty [because it makes Him
appear to be a tyrannical despot], more unedifying to man [too harsh and
unloving], more repugnant to Reason [miracles, spirit beings, everlasting
torment in hell], and more contradictory in itself [on the one hand it says He
is a God of love and mercy, and on the other it says He is vengeful], than this
thing called Christianity. Too absurd for belief, too impossible to convince…it
produces only atheists and fanatics…and leads to nothing here or hereafter.” In
the early 1800s Paine’s deism morphed into “Transcendental Meditation” among
the literary elite, and is why people sat in pretty settings – like Walden Pond
– to commune with Nature: it was religiously more informative than studying the
Bible! TM and Natural Theology went out of vogue in the mid 1800s when Natural
Law was exposed as a pagan myth, but Paine’s love of Reason remains.
. . .
Thomas
Jefferson,
with the exception of Thomas Paine, was the best example of an Enlightened
Christian gentleman. His heroes were Locke, Newton, and Bacon. Jefferson was
not an original thinker but he had an excellent mind, was an avid reader, and
possessed the writing ability of Sir William Blackstone, whom he admired. And
he was vindictive. He got his start in pagan philosophy when he, together with
James Madison and James Monroe, lived in the fashionable boarding school, Classical School for Boys, which was run
by the Enlightened and influential preacher and teacher, James Maury. Maury was
so impressed with pagan Reason he named his slaves after the ancients. The
courses he taught included Greek philosophy, manners, morals, mathematics,
Latin, and Greek.
Because
Jefferson so fervently believed in Natural Law, he tried to apply it to
Christianity and to government. And because Reason rejects things that are not
natural, Jefferson logically rejected the deity of Christ, His miracles, the
existence of angels and devils, and all supernatural events of the Bible. In
fact, he went so far as to edit all of that stuff out of the New Testament,
producing what is known as the “Jefferson Bible.” He said he removed those
parts in order “to pick out the diamonds from the dunghills.” The “Jefferson
Bible” is still sold today. Jefferson also wrote a booklet on the “morals” of
Christ. In it President Jefferson used antiquarian
Reasoning to uncover the Natural Law “morals” that Christ unconsciously
revealed in His speech. Jefferson thought it necessary to use Reason to uncover
Christ’s “morality” because when our Lord was crucified He was still so young
that His actual words were “defective” because “He hadn’t yet reached His peak
development as a thinker” as had Jefferson and the ancient pagan philosophers.
Even though he described himself as a deist, his letters to his nephew in 1787
show that Jefferson was really an agnostic. Because he was a Virginian and a
good writer he was asked to prepare a declaration of independence. He was
neither asked nor expected to write something original, and he didn’t. He
merely drew upon the prevailing philosophy of the Age of Reason, borrowing
heavily from Locke – a man Jefferson thought had reached his peak
development as a thinker.
You will learn that the
Founding Fathers were true converts of philosophical Reason. You will learn why
they designed the Great Seal of the United States of America the way they did
and why they wrote, “Announcing Beginning New Secular Order” on it in Latin.
(See it on the back of any dollar bill.) You will learn why even though many
states had Christian constitutions the Founding Fathers made the federal constitution
a secular one. You’ll learn why no other nation’s capital on earth has anything
like the District of Columbia, and what it was created to accomplish. You will
learn why your church and Christian school never
taught you any of the above and why they didn’t let you know about Article 11
in the Tripoli Treaty of 1796 that our Founding Fathers approved and signed.
(The treaty is easy to find and read on the Internet.) You will learn why and
when “these” United States became “the” United States, what all of that had to
do with the American Civil War, and how it made the original need for a
“federal” (as opposed to “central”) government disappear. You will learn how
the “Great Experiment” of secular democracy affected religion and society in
America. You will learn why democracy and patriotism were unofficially
incorporated as part of modern American Christianity. You will learn about the
efforts by Christians to rewrite the Constitution and the entire legal system
when they became aware that both were based on nothing but pagan philosophy’s
discredited Natural Law. You will learn about “In God We Trust” and why both
World Wars I and II were fought between democratic and autocratic countries.
You will learn about the meaning and importance of the Nuremberg Trials of
1945. And you will learn why Satan is so interested in Equality, philosophy,
the Laws of Nature, the Laws of Man, inalienable human Rights, and Freedom.
CHAPTER EXCERPTS:
Let
me use the Tripoli Treaty as an example of how tradition-bound Enlightened
Christians use the Bible. They have been taught in church that the f-ing fathers were good Christians who intended for the
government to be based on Christianity. So they go looking not for the truth,
but for snippets of information that seem to support their tradition. Alas and
alack, unofficial stuff is all they can find. And when they read documents like
the official Great Secular Seal and the official Tripoli Treaty, both carefully
deliberated and written by the f-ing fathers
themselves, they find they don’t like the truth and are offended by the f-ing fathers’ plainly-stated official position, so they
reject the facts by either ignoring them with a who-knows-what-it-means?
snappy little Pontius Pilate comeback, or by trying to
excuse and explain them away. In other words, official U.S. Government
documents penned personally by the f-ing fathers have
no more authority than the authorized words of God when they differ from what
Christians sincerely think is right and good. Christians in this Age of Reason
are their own authority and will submit to neither official government
documents nor the Bible when those sources are deemed offensive. That is one of
the reasons I have gone to considerable trouble to go back to the beginning of
history and put events into chronological perspective: I want people to see
that all of this stuff verifies itself because it is so consistent with
everything in history and in the Bible. And I want them to see that if the f-ing fathers were good Christians they would have endorsed
different preachers, read and enjoyed different authors and thinkers, would not
have produced the Declaration of Independence, the Great Secular Seal, the
Constitution, or the Tripoli Treaty, and would have been ostracized by the Enlightened elite of their day. If the f-ing
fathers had wanted to use Christianity as some kind of foundation for
government or society it would have been a glaring departure from their philosophy
and it would have been inexplicably contradicted by their actions.
. . .
The
f-ing fathers were shocked by this religious revival
and found that being Enlightened as distinct from
Christian could now be a political liability. When Aaron Burr (grandson of the
famous preacher and president of Princeton University, Jonathan Edwards) was
publicly criticized for ignoring Christianity, his fellow politicians reminded
him of the Christian vote and advised, “Had you not better go to church?” Even
Alexander Hamilton, recognizing this strange adoption of democracy by
Christianity, in frustrated resignation tried to wrap his Federalist cause in
Christian rhetoric.
By
the time they died, most, if not all, of the f-ing
fathers were very disappointed with their “Great Experiment.” One historian
says, “All the major revolutionary leaders died less than happy with the
results of the revolution.” John Adams spent his later years deriding both
democracy and the revived Christianity: “Where is now the progress of the human
mind?” In 1786, John Jay concluded, “The mass of men are neither wise nor
good”, and Noah Webster articulated a growing pro-monarchy sentiment: “I was
once as strong a republican as any man in America. Now a republican government is among the last kind I would choose. I would infinitely prefer a limited
monarchy, for I would sooner be subject to the caprice of one man, than to the
ignorance and passions of the multitude.” That’s why Webster would soon oppose
the Bill of Rights – it preserved too much of the ignorant masses’ power. George
Washington admitted that “We have probably had too good an opinion of human
nature in forming our confederation”, but was shocked “that even respectable
characters speak of a monarchical form of government without horror.” The f-ing fathers were so disillusioned and disgusted by the
voting masses that in 1787 they convened the Constitutional Convention to
eliminate the Articles of Confederation and establish a new government specifically
designed to curb the power of the masses
– even going so far as to look into forming a limited monarchy like Great
Britain. Alexander Hamilton made a famous pro-monarchy speech – but other delegates
like Rufus King were careful not to make their consideration of monarchy too
public. Convention president Nathaniel Gorham quietly wrote to Prince Henry of
Prussia asking him to consider being king of the USA. James Madison said they
“were now digesting a plan which in its operation would decide forever the fate
of Republican Gov’t.” However, because the new
government had to be unanimously
ratified by the 13 nation-states, and because so many people had already accepted
the philosophy that monarchy is evil and unchristian, the f-ing
fathers soon realized they had to reluctantly abandon any thoughts about returning
to monarchy…so they wrote a Constitution that cleverly changed the basis of the
federal government’s authority from the unanimous
consent of the nation-states (which would acknowledge their sovereignty), and vaguely based it on a
“We the people” majority. The states, seeing that the Constitution took too
much power away from the people, were outraged and refused to ratify it unless
a Bill of Rights was added to protect and preserve the rights of the people. But
even with the Bill of Rights, the Constitution still allowed the federal
government to subtly become powerful enough to silence the “states’ rights” issue
of sovereignty, with the result that most people today no longer look to their once-sovereign-but-now-impotent
state governments when they want
help, protection, and laws passed – they expect the federal government to do everything.
Thomas
Jefferson, for whom preachers were a real source of disgust, frustration, and
rage during his entire life, was particularly upset to see Christianity
incorporate the Enlightenment rather than be buried by it. When he was in his
seventies he decided to enjoy some reflective moments considering what a great
civilization he had helped build while learning some of the intellectual roots
behind the principles upon which he built this nation. So he studied the works
of Plato. Having read some nice things about this pagan philosopher who is the
“wisest of the philosophers”, Jefferson looked forward to delving into this
great thinker’s arguments, irrefutable Reason, and undeniable wisdom because
Jefferson had always trusted that Plato was one who had – unlike Christ –
reached his “peak development as a thinker.” Instead, he was shocked when he
found Plato to be fraudulently overrated. Just as the Spanish-Arab scholar
Averroes had created a crisis in Christianity by exposing Plato and Augustine’s
Plato-based “proof” of the immortality of the unregenerate soul as indefensibly
false, and just as Catherine the Great realized her philosophical idol,
Diderot, was an air-headed charlatan when she got to know him, so too was the
elderly Jefferson horrified to find out Plato’s arguments were just as
specious, unconvincing, and unimpressive as you and I have found all of the
arguments from the Greeks to Grotius. Hoist on his own petard, Jefferson died
sadder but wiser, and left the mess he had created to future generations who,
as he had done, would assume those who had gone before had laid a solid
foundation.
Many
people correctly said democracy is a flawed system because it assumes you get
sagacity from the ignorant masses, that you get collective wisdom from
individual idiots. Those fundamental charges were rebutted by Enlightened
zealots who, believing our democracy to be a “new utopia”, attempted to draw
sharp distinctions between a republic and a democracy by
emphasizing the more aristocratic (and therefore more erudite) nature of a
republic. They also argued that the United States is under the rule of law –
not the masses of ignorant voters. But since both republics and pure
democracies have the masses as their very source of legitimacy, power, and
authority, it was impossible to denigrate the masses by exalting
republicanism…without mocking the “sacred” pagan principles that are the sole
foundation of the Age of Reason, the f-ing fathers’
ideology, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution – upon which
foundation rests the entire free world.
. . .
Because
the right of a sovereign state to secede from anything with which it might be
confederated was not seriously questioned, the initial sentiment in the North
when the South threatened to secede was “good riddance.” But then economics
intervened. The most important harbor in the U.S. was New York. Charleston,
because of its eastern seaboard location and its extensive railroad system
linking it with the east, was second. New Orleans was third because the
Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio rivers gave it natural highways reaching far
into the continent west of the Appalachian Mountains. The North charged a 25%
import tariff. The South set its rate at 10%. If you were shipping steel from
France to the U.S., a 15% profit margin would certainly cause you to unload in
Charleston or New Orleans. Because of its more sophisticated economy the North
had higher overhead costs and could not compete with a 10% tariff. Newspaper
editorials appeared in the North saying if the South seceded there would be
grass growing in the deserted streets of New York in ten years. That’s why Fort
Sumter in Charleston harbor was so important to the North, and is why the
military action of the Civil War began there.
To
southerners, President Lincoln was like King George III: he was taxing them,
denying their “right” to self-determination, and he was responding with
military might to their declaration of independence. From a Biblical
perspective the North was right (unless the southern nations were in fact
sovereign) because rebellion against evil and oppressive authority is never
right. From the standpoint of the principles of the Declaration of
Independence, however, the southern states were right (whether they were
sovereign or not). But it is difficult or impossible to defend one side or the
other because democracy is rife with contradictions whether viewed through
Scripture or secular logic – contradictions that are compounded by years of
“legal precedent.” As soon as the U.S. came into existence it began changing as
it reacted to inconsistencies and problems, and in so doing it created new
problems and inconsistencies. Because the states were sovereign nations people
used to say, “I’m proud to be a citizen of these United States.” Until
the Fourteenth Amendment there was no such thing as an “American citizen”
because you were not a citizen of the United States, you were a citizen
of (for example) New Jersey, which was confederated with the other states by
its participation in the federal government in the District of Columbia. But
when immigrants were processed in New Jersey and then went inland to find a
home, were they to be treated by Virginians as foreign citizens of New Jersey,
or were they to be treated as all colonists had been before the American
Revolution when all colonists were citizens of Great Britain/citizens of the
United States? Slowly the ideological lines were drawn: Those who valued the
principles of the Declaration of Independence favored states’ rights; those who
valued a practical compromise favored a stronger central government. (As Bible
believers you and I favor anything that gives authority to the single head.)
Another
problem with democracy for Christians concerns government officials. Should we
pray for them and refrain from speaking ill of them because they have the rule
over us, or should we view them as our public servants? We can only ignore such
contradictory nonsense if we ignore the importance of authority. And for
Christians to ignore authority is a critical mistake with huge and far-reaching
ramifications and consequences.
When
Article Thirteen prohibited slavery in violation of Article One, this
contradiction was made possible by the increasing importance of the Declaration
of Independence as an authoritative bible for society. When Natural Law was
exposed as nothing but Greek mythology, some other mystical authority had to be
found to rule society. And since the National Reform Association’s lost cause
showed everyone the Constitution could not be based upon Christianity or the
Bible, all Enlightened eyes turned to the Declaration
of Independence. It had it all: It combined a generic “God” and democracy and
patriotism and the principles of the Age of Reason in one foundational document
that could be an ideological substitute for the Bible. Proponents of treating
the Declaration of Independence as a “higher authority” include President
Lincoln, who appealed to the principles of the Declaration to make slavery
evil; William Seward, a senator from New York and Lincoln’s Secretary of State
who purchased Alaska; and modern-day Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who
wants to restore Natural Law as “human nature” and “reason” rather than as the
old discredited God-implanted moral code. Vestiges of “godly” Natural Law still
existed in Lincoln’s day, so it was easy to claim an ideological supremacy for
the Declaration of Independence because no patriotism- and democracy-worshipping
Christian would argue with it. Therefore, the Declaration ceased being merely a
joint announcement by thirteen rebellious colonies and became – without
legislation of any kind – a document superior to the Constitution. The southern
states had already accepted the authority of the federal government over the
states when they applauded the Missouri Compromise, and now they found that the
very Constitution that restricted the powers of the federal government (by
limiting it to specific tasks beneficial to the states) had become itself
subject to the principles of Greek mythology behind the Declaration of
Independence! It was perfect…because Americans may scoff at Natural Law, but
they’d never deny their belief in the “sacred” principles behind the
Declaration of Independence. From a Christian perspective, therefore, “Seward’s
folly” wasn’t Alaska; it was making the Declaration a clever substitute for
discredited Natural Law. And that is how the federal government justified the
creation of laws that told the states what they could and couldn’t do: The
Thirteenth Amendment wasn’t violating either Article One or the Bible, because anything
that contradicted the principles of the Declaration of Independence was now
unconstitutional and unchristian. The government was merely submitting
to the same “higher authority” that all Freedom worshippers bowed to.
For
the same reasons, the legal system was (supposedly) no longer based on Natural
Law/Common Law – it was based on “Equity” (or “Conscience” as it used to be
called), which is now known as “equity jurisprudence.” In this way the legal
system became based on the same principles as the Declaration of Independence.
The brilliance of this is in the fact that the Declaration of Independence can never
be changed. We can vote to change the Constitution, and revision committees can
change the words in the Bible, but not one jot or tittle
of the Declaration of Independence can ever be changed because it is a
historical document. Today no church doctrine or governmental law will be
tolerated if it violates the underlying ideology of the Declaration of
Independence. Satan has done well: All Christians now worship the “original
Greek”, whether it be the ERROR manuscripts or
the Greek philosophy underlying the Declaration of Independence and the Age of
Reason.
I’ll
use this Civil War era quote to show that Reason had become so unquestionably authoritative
that self-evidence was its own proof: “Slavery is contrary to the principles of
Natural Right and to the great law of Love. It is founded on injustice and
fraud, and can be supported only by the existing laws and customs which have
been established by men acting against the Laws of Nature. This point is not
necessary to prove, indeed, a discussion of these principles has become
unnecessary in consequence of the revelations of the Enlightenment concerning
Reason and Common Sense.”
And
now look at this 21st century Hollywood movie quote. This speech was
made by the star of the movie to a congressional committee, and it was the
patriotic, dramatic, and ideologically-inspiring turning point of the show that
made you want to jump up and recite the Pledge of Allegiance: “Mr. Chairman,
ladies and gentlemen of the committee…I stand for a woman’s right to choose. I
stand for the elimination of the death penalty. I stand for a
strong and growing armed forces because we must stomp out genocide on this planet
– and I believe that is worth dying for! I stand for seeing every gun
taken out of every home – period. I stand for making the selling of cigarettes
to our youth a federal offense. I stand for term limits and campaign reform.
Mr. Chairman, I stand for the separation of church and state. The reason that I
stand for that is the same reason that I believe our forefathers did: It is not
there to protect religion from the grasp of government, but to protect
our government from the grasp of religious fanaticism. I may be an
atheist, but that does not mean I do not go to church; I do go to church: The
‘church’ I go to is the one that emancipated the slaves, that
gave women the right to vote, that governs every freedom that we hold dear. My
‘church’ is this very chapel of democracy that we sit in together, and I do not
need God to tell me what are my moral absolutes; I
need my heart and my brain and this ‘church’.”
The
Civil War was the first and only time the United States declared war on a
democracy. In many ways the Civil War was necessary in order to resolve some of
the questions and problems that were not anticipated when the Constitution was
written. The Civil War also served as a distraction from the issue of upon
what – now that Natural Law was discredited – is the government of
the U.S. – including the now-sacred Declaration of Independence – based?
With the practical problems faced by the nation during the buildup to war,
during the fighting, and during Reconstruction, people were not able to remain
focused on the principles and concepts of the Bible. And by the time the dust
of Reconstruction settled, states’ rights and the sovereignty of the states
were dead issues, and “these United States” passed into history and became “the
United States.” A union of confederated sovereign nations became one nation
under a strong central government. The original meaning of sovereign state
in practice became county, and therefore the
original meaning of federal government became that of central
government. And the District of Columbia lost its reason for being, which has
resulted in people today wanting it to be represented in Congress just like a
state.
As
the government in the District of Columbia gained the ascendancy and the states
lost their sovereignty, the central government gradually forced the states to
adopt secular governments. The early state constitutions that in some way
recognized the Christian religion were declared to be contrary to the
Enlightenment doctrines embraced by the central government and the f-ing fathers, so they were all rewritten and made secular.
Constitutions can be changed because as official laws they are under the
control of the people. The Declaration of Independence, however, cannot be
changed because as a “sacred” historical document it is under the control of no
one on earth. Today in the United States the philosophic doctrines embodied in
the Declaration of Independence are, in practice, the final authority in
church and state.
Many things we “know”
about the Bible did not come from the Bible. In only one page this chapter
shows how religious tradition really does make the word of God of none effect.
You will learn that the star was not a super nova, a comet, or a planetary
conjunction. You will learn from the Bible exactly what it was and why old
Christians used to put on top of their Xmas trees either a star or an angel.
(You will notice that this Doctrinal Section of The Age of Reason is
different from the Historical Section: Even though the Historical Section
contained a number of Scripture references, it could profitably be read without
consulting those references. But the Doctrinal Section, which is full of
Scripture references, cannot be profitably read without looking up the
Scripture. I make no apologies for that; The Age of Reason is written
for an exclusive group – Bible believers.)
CHAPTER EXCERPTS:
If you were sitting on your porch at
night, or even during the day, and saw a comet or supernova would you
decide while looking at the object that:
1)
It was going to
lead you on a journey to some indeterminate location so you could
2)
Find a newborn
king no one else knew about, and
3)
Worship and
present him with gifts, and
4)
Try to convince
some friends not only that the object means all of that but also that
5)
They should
accompany you on this journey?
Of course you wouldn’t. But in their
Jeffersonian haste to replace the supernatural events in the Bible with natural
ones, Christians don’t think.
So let’s check with the Bible. Any star,
nova, comet, or planetary conjunction that dramatic would be a real
attention-getter. But the Bible uses King Herod in Mt 2:7 to show that
the star attracted nobody’s attention but the wise men’s!
For all of the above reasons it is
extremely unlikely that the star was a bright heavenly object.
The answer, as usual, is not to be found
in the flatulence of modern science, but rather in God’s Authorized 1611 King
James Bible: The star was an angel God sent to give instructions to the wise
men. Just as we refer to athletes and actors as “stars”, the Bible refers to
angels as stars. Read Re 1:20 and then compare Re 12:4 with 12:9.
For other examples read Nu 24:17; Jb 38:7; Re 9:1,2; 22:16.
. . .
People used to know all
of this. And on top of their Xmas trees they would put either a star or
an angel.
You will learn why today’s
denominational theories about where the waters of Noah’s flood came from and
then where they went simply do not hold water Scripturally.
You will learn what the Deep of Genesis 1 has to do with the Flood and what the
universe looks like.
CHAPTER EXCERPT:
Let’s take a brief look at “dark matter”
in order to see how a Bible believer might use discernment when he reads the
daily newspaper. The Big Bang theory so popular with scientists says a ball of
matter exploded, driving the matter outward. But the outward-traveling bits of
matter did not continue to expand and get farther away from each other.
Instead, some of them got close enough so gravitational attraction could pull
them into swirling galaxies. All stars are in galaxies. The galaxies are far away
from each other. So far, in fact, that all the stars we see
at night are in our own Milky Way Galaxy. In between galaxies science
always thought there was nothing – no stars, “no nothing;” just the void and
vacuum of outer space.
But that didn’t sit well with scientists
because if the Big Bang did happen, all of that outward-traveling matter would not
have collected into galaxies with nothing in between. In fact, it is stretching
it to say that even 10% of the matter would have randomly collected into galaxies.
That leaves 90% of the matter in the universe missing out there somewhere. And
that makes the theory look pretty weak. So they said there must be huge clumps
of matter out there that we can’t see…and they called it dark matter. But even if there is dark matter out there, many
remained unconvinced about the Big Bang theory.
Then along came the C.O.B.E. Project,
which you probably read in the news provided “confirming evidence” of the Big
Bang theory. In essence, they aimed sensitive radiation-detecting equipment out
in space between galaxies to see if they could find anything in the void. And,
out in the “void” or “vacuum” of space between galaxies, they recorded a faint
wavy line. (A flat line would mean nothing was there.) They decided the wavy line
was not the heat signature of some unknown
substance, it had to be evidence of leftover
heat from the Big Bang explosion and
from the huge clumps of dark matter
(and its accompanying “dark energy”). Therefore, the Big Bang theory has been
“validated.” And from their Reasonable scientific perspective you and I can see
how they’d think they are on the right track. And their error doesn’t bother us
at all; they can bark at the moon all they want. But you and I have an
advantage over scientists because you and I are not prohibited by the rules of
philosophy from letting the Bible guide our thoughts.
To Bible believers it looks like all
they did was discover the heat signature of the firmament.
All matter emits radiation – heat
radiation, since nothing exists at a temperature of absolute zero. Think of a
fishbowl or a birdcage, for example: Everything in it – fish or birds – has
detectable radiation. And even if we can’t see the water or the air they
still emit radiation because there is something there. So we don’t say
the space between the fish and birds is a void or vacuum, because
that space is not nothing…it is something. And
we don’t call that radiation-emitting-but-invisible stuff dark matter (or the leftover heat of the Big Bang),
because we’ve already called it air and water.
OK, what’s the point? The point is you
and I knew all of this stuff about the universe long before the Big Bang theory
and the C.O.B.E. Project:
God made the fish and the birds. So they
really exist – they aren’t nothing, a void, or a
vacuum. And God made the water and the air. So they also really exist. Why do
they exist? Because God created them. What did
God do with the birds and the fish? He put them in the invisible air and water.
God also made the sun, the moon, and the
stars. So they really exist – they aren’t nothing, a
void, or a vacuum. And God made the firmament. So it also really exists.
Why does it exist? Because God created it. What
did God do with the sun, moon, and stars? He put them in the invisible
firmament (Ge 1:17). So all these years while
scientists have been barking at the moon and telling us the sun, moon, and
stars were in nothing, a vacuum, a void, you and I just rolled our eyes and
thought, “Will they ever learn?” And when the C.O.B.E. Project
“discovered” that there is a low-level heat signature of something out there between the stars and galaxies, you and I just
rolled our eyes in disgust because scientists said it was primordial heat from the Big Bang and from dark matter –
instead of heat from the firmament…and they thought it validated
the Big Bang instead of the Bible.
You will learn from the
Bible where the Lord Jesus Christ – in His resurrected physical body – went
when He ascended up into heaven. You’ll learn why the Bible says He “sitteth upon the flood” on a “sea of glass like unto
crystal” “on the sides of the north”, and why we say north is “up.”
CHAPTER EXCERPT:
There are three heavens.
The first heaven is the lowest; it is our atmosphere where, for example, the
birds fly (Je 8:7). The second heaven is outer space (Ge 1:6-17). The third heaven is the highest
heaven and is also called “paradise” (2 Co 12:2-4).
The waters of the deep
are above the two lower heavens (Ps 148:4) and God lives above these two
heavens (Ps 113:4,5) on top of the waters of
the deep. So the deep is a boundary: Beneath the deep are two heavens, outer
space and our atmosphere; above or on top of the deep is heaven, the third
heaven, paradise.
The face of the deep is
covered with ice (Job 38:30), which explains the “sea of glass like unto
crystal” before the throne of God in heaven (Re 4:6). And it is upon
this frozen sea of glass in heaven that the saints stand with the harps of God
(Re 15:2).
God says nature can
teach us things (1 Co 11:14) because He created things on earth
according to a pattern of heavenly things (He 8:1-5). This spherical earth
is covered with watery oceans. The North Pole was once thought to be ice on top
of land like Antarctica. But there is no earth there, just the polar ice cap,
the frozen surface of the Arctic Ocean.
This spherical universe
is also covered with a vast ocean – called the deep. The surface of the
deep is frozen where God’s throne is. But where is that?
God made all compasses
point north. All compasses point toward the polar ice cap, toward the frozen
surface of the deep. On all maps and globes north is up and we’ve
already seen the Bible says Jesus went up to heaven, but is God’s throne
also north?
God and north are
associated in…
This chapter discusses a
number of topics and events that happened prior to the Creation Week and Adam
and Eve. It shows the distinction between the garden of God, the garden of Eden, and Eden. It shows that modern Christianity
ignores many of the events in the Bible. It has an illustration of the Kingdom
of God back when it was still the only kingdom before it was divided by
Lucifer's rebellion, and it has an illustration of the present universe that
has two kingdoms, the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven.
CHAPTER EXCERPTS:
In the beginning God
created the heaven and the earth (Ge 1:1). And
obviously at that point man was not around because man was not created until Ge 1:26. But notice in v.28 that God
told man to multiply and replenish the earth. Replenish means to refill
or to fill again and implies that something was there before. That would
mean two things: First, there was an earth before the seven-day creation, and
second, it was populated.
God used the same word
when He later told Noah to multiply and replenish the earth (Ge 9:1). God obviously used replenish
with Noah because, first, the earth existed before Noah’s flood, and second, it
had been populated by Adam’s descendants. Now notice that when God referred to animals
in Ge 1:22, He used the word fill
instead of replenish. He did so because the animals did not exist
before. God is very careful about the words He chooses. And the fact that He
chose the word replenish with Adam – just like He did with Noah – leads
to the obvious question: Who was living on what earth before Adam
was created?
. . .
In the state of
Pennsylvania there is a county called Lancaster. Lancaster County is in
Pennsylvania. The county is in Pennsylvania but the county is not
Pennsylvania. The county is Lancaster, not Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania is not the name of the county just because the county is in, or
part of, Pennsylvania. Lancaster is a county of Pennsylvania, and it is in
Pennsylvania, but that does not mean the county is named Pennsylvania.
In Eden there was a garden (Ge
2:8). This garden was in Eden. It was in the eastern part of Eden.
The garden was not named Eden; it was in Eden. It was a garden of Eden (Ge
2:15), and it was in Eden, but that does not mean the garden was
named Eden. See also Ge 2:10.
In Ge
13:10 we have a place called “the garden of the Lord” being compared
with Egypt. Egypt is often a type of the world in the Bible, much more often,
in fact, than birds, trees, and stars are used in their figurative sense. In Is 51:3 we see this “garden of the Lord”
mentioned along with “Eden” (not the “garden of Eden”). That means
“Eden” is the same as “the garden of the Lord” which is typified by
Egypt – the world. In other words, this planet we live on was named Eden and
the whole thing was the garden of the Lord. On the planet Eden, God
later created a smaller garden that was home to Adam. This small garden was not
named Eden because Eden was the name of the entire planet. So the small garden
was called, appropriately enough, the garden of
Eden.
In Ge
1:1 God created the heaven and the earth. The earth was named Eden and the
whole planet was God’s garden. It was referred to as the garden of the Lord and
the garden of God. Lucifer was put in the garden of God to keep it and to dress
it. But he rebelled and warred against God. In this war the planet Eden was
destroyed and became without form and void. God took the destroyed Eden and in
six days created the planet anew. But because Eden was now part of the Devil’s
kingdom (Mt 4:8,9; 12:25-28; 2 Co 4:4; Jn 12:31; 18:36), God didn’t make the entire planet His
garden this time, and it would no longer be referred to as the garden of the
Lord. In the eastern part of Eden, God planted a garden and put Adam in it to
dress it and to keep it. But Adam also rebelled against God and was kicked out
of the garden of Eden.
I’ll now try to piece
together what happened from the Scriptures so you can see whether these things
be so. (As you study this topic the two illustrations on pages 4 and 5 of this
chapter may help you visualize what I’m saying.)
. . .
This topic is a “gee
whiz” topic, a fun topic. And I enjoy it. It helps us get some mental exercise
because it goes to a lot of places in the Bible that are silently swept under
the rug by modern Christianity. This topic is also a good illustration of how
shamefully lazy, ignorant, unskilled, uninterested, and unadventurous we
are when studying the mind of God and the subjects He put in His Book.
This uses examples of
Christ’s teachings to show that His doctrines befuddled the Pharisees because
He took the Bible literally and they did not. These first five chapters of the
Doctrinal Section are introductions or practice sessions in order to prepare
you for the rest of the Doctrinal Section. These early chapters use commonly misunderstood
doctrines in the modern church to demonstrate: 1) The
modern church does not go by the Bible – even with simple little things like
these that do not threaten anybody’s lifestyles. 2) We really do learn more
from the Bible when we go by what it actually says – rather than by what
somebody tells us it says. 3) I really do go by the Bible, so maybe it’ll be
safe for you to delve more deeply into the doctrinal section – as long as you
continue to carefully check the Scriptures to ensure that I don’t stray from
them.
CHAPTER EXCERPT:
These examples
illustrate the necessity of a literal interpretation in order to fully
appreciate and understand Bible doctrine. When many people point to the
parables in the Bible in attempts to discredit literal interpretations, their
blindness causes them to miss the fact that they are actually providing more
evidence to support a literal interpretation of the Bible. Why? Because the
Bible literally says the parables are parables!
Taking the Bible
literally is also a good way for ignorant wretches to avoid being offensive to
the Lord. Because we have grown up in an Enlightened culture in which equality
supposedly makes the different strata of society level it is sometimes
difficult for us to understand how important it is for people to know their
place in society – and stay there. When an ignorant buffoon of a servant has
been hired to serve food and drink at a conference of wealthy, cultured,
educated, dignified, intelligent, and powerful international aristocrats, the worst
thing he can do is open his mouth and say something other than Yes, sir; No,
sir; Right away, sir; etc. For him to say and do anything outside of his
duties is to risk offending the dignitaries in many, many ways that he is
unaware of and simply cannot understand. He needs to be trained to serve with
fear and respect, and he must understand that one of the drawbacks of being an
aristocrat is the fact that you must occasionally suffer the presence of your
servants. That is bad enough, and is why you do not see aristocrats on
various modes of public transportation, in movie theaters, etc. (My wife and I
know an excellent chef who as a young man was serving dignitaries at a White
House dinner. He said something he thought was OK and appropriate to one of the
aristocrats. He was immediately demoted and transferred to Camp David.) As
God’s slaves we must study and strive to serve Him as efficiently and as
unobtrusively as possible in the hope that we’ll be found pleasing in His
sight. Two necessary components of discernment are fear and humility, and they
will help us avoid the haughty and offensive arrogance of not taking His
commandments literally by deciding to guess at what He really meant to
say. I say again, we sinners are simply too young and too stupid to rise up and
change His Instructions into what we think is right and good. God is
great; we are not. We are the servant class and God has given us His Book of
Instructions. If we do not obey it literally we run the risk of having Him say,
“Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the
things which I say?” (Lk 6:46);
“Thou art an offence unto me” (Mt 16:23); “How long shall I suffer you?”
(Mt 17:17). We need to climb down from our prideful arrogance and get
about the business of being humble servants who live to carry out our Master’s
every word.
This shows why authority
is the most important issue in the Bible, whether people know about it or not.
If you do not understand this chapter you do not understand who God is and you
do not understand Christianity. Authority became the issue when Lucifer
rebelled and became the god of this world. We must demonstrate with our
obedient works that we choose Christ as our God rather than Satan. Only when
Satan is defeated and there is again but one kingdom and one God will authority
cease being a critical issue. In the meantime we must submit ourselves to the
hierarchies that God has ordained: He put us under parents, rulers, and
governors and He told us to obey them as if they were God (Eph 5:22;6:5-7; 1 Pet 2:13-15). This chapter explains the principles
behind authority in order to bring the issue more sharply into focus and to
better help us understand why independence and rebellion and carnality are such
abominations to God that they result in damnation (Rom 13:1,2).
CHAPTER EXCERPTS:
Notice that the main
theme of “the Lord’s Prayer” is authority (Mt 5:10,13b). Also, Christ
was so mindful of authority that He even refused to correct the wrong of Lk 12:13, and He rebuked the man for failing
to think about the fact that Christ had no authority to interfere (Lk 12:14). Christ then pointed out that
covetousness (v.15) is the reason people resist authority – which is why
Lucifer rebelled.
. . .
A good, clear, and
undeniable example of how the Lord Jesus Christ wants us to treat ungodly
authorities over us today can be found in Mt 23:1-33. He starts by
telling the multitude of Christians – including His own disciples (v.1) – that
the scribes and Pharisees were authorities over them because – like it or not – they sat in Moses’ seat
(v.2). And just as Moses was supposed to be obeyed as if he were God Almighty, so,
too, were Christians ordered to obey whatsoever the Pharisees told them
to do (v.3). Christ then goes on to tell Christians not to treat others like
the Pharisees did, and He backs it up by saying some very damning things about
the Pharisees.
Didn’t Christ know the Pharisees were ungodly
hypocrites who were not only overburdening Christians, but were also dragging
them to hell (v.15) with them? Oh yes. Didn’t our f-ing
fathers “justify” their disobedience to King George III by portraying him as an
ungodly authority who was overburdening them? Oh yes. Did Christ tell
Christians the Pharisees were not proper authorities because they had lost
their “right” to rule by betraying their duty to be godly authorities? No! But
isn’t that exactly what over four hundred years of Enlightened Christians have
fervently believed? Yes! Didn’t Christ tell Christians they should obediently
submit to the wrongful treatment of their authorities? Oh yes. But didn’t our
f-ing fathers convince over two hundred years’ worth
of preachers and pewsters the “godly” course of
action was to resist ungodly authority? Oh yes.
. . .
The above examples teach us something about the relationship
between authority and right and wrong: The authority determines right and
wrong, and if there is no authority there is no right
and wrong. That’s why God told His servants to stay away from the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil. If the members of the body ignore the head and
decide what they want to do it destroys authority and the standard of right and
wrong; every man does what is right in his own eyes. When a Christian’s head
thinks it is time to study the Bible and his body thinks it is time to watch
TV, a struggle for authority/supremacy is occurring because the body should never
resist the will of the head. Depending on whether the Bible or the TV wins,
that person is either a monarch ruling well his own household or a democratic
servant without sovereignty. Any Christian who is not an expert on the Bible
like God ordered is not only a disobedient rebel, he also has no choice but to
live his life by constantly going to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
to decide what to do. That is carnality. It is an abomination. It is enmity
against God because it is an attack on who He is.
Without a Bible version that is accepted as authoritative and absolute there is
no way for God, the authoritative Head who determines right and wrong, to
clearly dictate His will. Christians who ignore the infallible authority of the
word of God by not taking it literally must compensate by partaking of the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil. They do so by running to the Greek and
Hebrew in order to choose a definition that seems right in their own eyes. They
are destroying Christianity by dividing the Kingdom of God against itself. A
kingdom is divided whenever there is more than one authority in it.
. . .
The existence of God – Who and What He is – establishes inequality
as the good and right status quo (Is 40:25; 46:5). God is the Alpha and the
Omega; He is all-knowing, ever-present, and omnipotent. What else is He? He’s
the Creator. That means everything and everyone else that exists came from Him
and belongs to Him. And nothing and nobody has any of His qualities
listed above. And we never will have any of those qualities. That means none of
us will ever be equal to God.
But there’s more to God than His capabilities. There is the fact
that He is. Because He exists, because there is a God, and because He is
that God, inequality exists and will remain because – to quote an old song – there’ll
never be another You. (I frequently use popular
love songs as hymns in my mind.) Therefore everything and everyone else
in existence is inferior to, owned by, and subordinate to Him. All of this
makes God the Authority – it’s just Who He is. All other lesser
authorities, no matter who they are, occupy their positions as types of the
Supreme Authority Who, in His omnipotent omniscience, allowed them to be in
power. The Bible makes that quite clear. Nobody would be so
stupid and suicidal as to dare to be His equal in anything. To do so would
challenge the fact that He is everything that He is. That is why I think the
evil God created back in the beginning was the concept of equality.
Before Lucifer accepted the wicked idea of equality it wasn’t
possible for him to consider his own thoughts, his will, or his capabilities to
be in any way equal to God’s. When Lucifer incorporated the idea of equality it
enabled him to covet God’s prerogatives: Even though God owns everything,
Lucifer wanted to have something of his own. Here’s what we learn when we put
together 1 Ti 6:10; Ezek 28:4-6,15,16; Is 14:13,14:
When Lucifer wanted to have some of God’s creations he began using his brain to
accumulate physical wealth. Lucifer’s covetousness made him no longer view the
physical objects God made as neutral things; they became possessions
in his eyes – things to have, to own. We also learn that as those
possessions grew in number they caused his heart, his mind, to be lifted to a
point where he thought he was God’s equal. Lucifer’s independent – or equal –
mind is called both iniquity and violence, which just happens to
be the definition of the carnal mind in Ro 8:7. Thus, Lucifer’s love of material wealth
(money) led him to covet (rob) God’s things. That challenged God’s position as
God and it made Lucifer rise up as another head. That started the war, caused
Lucifer to seduce Adam and Eve into partaking of the forbidden fruit of
knowledge, etc., etc. In other words, Lucifer’s love of money really was and is
the root of all evil; it all started with him, his coveting started the war against
authority and for equality.
This proves with
Scripture that there really is a difference between the saved and the unsaved,
between mortal “life” and immortal life, between spirit and soul, and between
the old man and the new man.
CHAPTER EXCERPT:
Mt 10:28 is thought-provoking in the same way Jn
3:10 is. In the former, Christ casually mentions to Old Testament saints
the second body that goes with the soul to hell. Christ apparently didn’t think
He needed to give them a 1 Corinthians 15 dissertation on the two bodies and
from whom/Whom they come because He expected Old Testament saints to already
know about being born of the Holy Spirit and the second body that comes from
it. That is why in John 3 when Nicodemus had trouble following Christ’s talk
about the difference between being born of the Spirit and being born of the
flesh, Christ rebuked him by pointing out that a master of Israel should already
understand the new birth in Jn 3 and the second body
in Mt 10:28. Also notice that Mt 10:28 is perfectly complemented by 1 Pe 3:19, which refers to the Old Testament saints’
second – spirit – bodies in hell. Mt 10:28 and 1 Pe 3:19 show that the Old Testament saints really did have
two bodies and that the second one was the spirit body. And they show
that, while we may disagree about the exact time when the new birth makes
saints spirits rather than mortals by giving them spirit bodies, we must agree
it happens before the mortal body hits the grave because no soul goes anywhere
without the new birth’s spirit body.
We can understand Nicodemus’ confusion: Even today many Christian
dissemblers and eternal security advocates think Christ was wrong to say there
is a second body that accompanies the soul to hell. They “correct” Christ by
claiming the soul goes alone to hell because their doctrines are
contradicted by the accompanying second (spirit) body. Dissemblers reject the
Old Testament saints’ spirit bodies because they are just as guilty of
dissembling and dissimulation as were Peter and Barnabas in Ga
2:11-14. Dissembling in the Bible is feigning a doctrinal
difference between God’s Old Testament saints and His New Testament saints, and
dissimulation means to conceal our true doctrinal unity in Christ
(Ga 3:24,28,29) by pointing to
irrelevant differences in outward appearances between Jews and Gentiles.
Because these dissemblers today reject Christ’s teaching about the second body
in Mt 10:28 and 1 Pe 3:19, they love the fact that
Ishmael (Abraham’s firstborn son who was unsaved) was merely born after the flesh,
but they hate and reject the fact that Isaac (Abe’s second son who was a
Christian) was born after the Spirit (Ga
4:22,23,28,29). Why do they dissemble? Because, among other things, they do
not understand the fact that all Old and New Testament saints are
priests (Ex 19:6; 1 Pe 2:5,9),
and we are all under the same High Priest, Christ Jesus (He
5:5,10). The fact that God ordained but one High Priest, Christ, over His
house (He 10:21) shows there is but one priesthood – no matter
what dissemblers claim. We are Christians because we are priests serving
our High Priest, Christ. And Old Testament saints are Christians
because they, too, are priests serving the same High Priest we are. (If you
need to review some of the verses showing the Old Testament saints were
Spirit-born followers of the same Christ we are, consult the list of verses on
pages D8-2,3.) The Bible reveals but one God, one High
Priest, one priesthood, one religion, one salvation,
one church, and one body of believers against whom Satan is trying to prevail
in his unholy ideological war.
This shows that the
Bible establishes a difference between the human animal and the human angel,
and what the Bible means when it says Christ, by taking on human mortality, was
made a little lower than the angels. It explains why unsaved humans, who are
just body and soul, are no different from animals according to Ecclesiastes
3:18,19. It shows why Christ and the Old and New
Testament saints repeatedly referred to the unsaved as dogs, and why God and
His people suddenly – after Abraham was separated from the rest of the human
race – began to declare that He was “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob”
rather than the God of all humans like He used to be back in the days of Adam
and Noah. You will learn why saints and the unsaved live by different rules,
and why the difference between saints and the unsaved is so important. You will
have lots of Scripture to look up in order to carefully evaluate all of my
points.
CHAPTER EXCERPT:
The Bible says Christ, in order to save us from the curse of the
law (Ga 3:10,13), had
to die in our place. But since angels are spirits and it is not possible for
spirits to die, Christ had to be made a little lower than angels so He could
die (He 2:9). In other words, He
became a flesh-and-blood descendant of Abraham – a mortal human – so He would
be able to die (He 2:14,16).
OK, if mortal beings are considered “lower”
than spirit beings because mortals die
and spirits don’t, how do we mortal humans rank with mortal animals?
After all, animals became – when God put into their nostrils the breath
of life – living souls that die
(Re 8:9; 16:3; Jb
12:10; Ps 49:12,20; Ge
7:21,22) just as humans became – when God put into their nostrils
the breath of life – living souls
that die (Ge 2:7,17; Ezek 18:4; Ro 6:23), so what’s
the difference? The Bible answer is none; the unsaved human who is just body
and soul (no spirit) is no different from animals (Ec 3:18,19).
Tradition has long taught that animals don’t have souls because of the
embarrassing difficulty of trying to explain why the theory of the immortality
of the soul applies to the souls of people but not to the souls of animals. It
was much easier for Christians to ignore what the Bible said, claim animals
didn’t have souls, pretend the intellect (soul) is what separates us from and
elevates us over animals, and cast stones at anyone who said otherwise by
calling them “evolutionists.” To see more evidence that the Bible doesn’t
differentiate between the souls of humans and animals compare Josh 6:21 where the “all” that they
killed included humans and animals,
with Josh 10 where the “all that
breathed” that they killed (v.40) were
souls (v.28,30,32,35,37,39). Also, when God’s
people settled in the Promised Land, God gave them different instructions on
how they were to treat nearby cities and those cities far away. In the distant
cities that were peaceful all
could live (Dt 20:10,11). In
the distant cities that were not submissive only the women and animals could live (Dt 20:12-15). But in the cities within
the Promised Land “nothing that breatheth” was to
remain alive (Dt 20:16-18).
Both humans and animals are lower than angels
simply because mortals are not immortals. Things that die are in fact – from an eternal
perspective – insignificant.
Not only does the Bible say, “man hath no
preeminence above a beast” (Ec 3:19), but about
humans it says, “they themselves are beasts” (Ec
3:18). The fact that unsaved humans, animals, plants, and insects die means they are temporary from the perspective of time, and insignificant from the perspective of eternity.
The explanations you’ve heard for why God and His people referred
to the unsaved as dogs (such as, “The
word dog is a misleading,
unfortunate, and offensive literal translation because the word should be
viewed as an allegorical reference to cute, lovable, cuddly little puppies; it
was a term of endearment”), are misleading, unfortunate, and offensive because
they are un- and anti-Scriptural. Preachers usually just make stuff like that
up because, lacking doctrinal understanding, they’re embarrassed that taking
Christ literally seems to make Him an equality-rejecting, demeaning,
uncivilized bigot toward unsaved people – and they’re trying to cover for Him.
He doesn’t need their help, and it is correct to take Christ literally.
God’s people, including the original New Testament Christians, used
to understand all of the above, so they accepted it, incorporated it into their
thinking, and literally referred to
the unsaved, who were merely body and soul (no spirit), as DOGS: Ex 11:7; Ps 22:12,16; Mt 7:6;
15:23-28; Ph 3:2; Re 22:15. Even though this topic is a mystery today, it
was no secret back then; even the pagans
understood how God’s people viewed them (Ru 2:10,13; Mk 7:26-28; Jn
4:9).
You have always been
told to grow, but nobody ever taught you how growth is attained. Until now. You will learn why we must eat other mortal life
forms (the food chain) in order to sustain our physical lives, and you will learn why we must eat the immortal
flesh and blood of Christ in order to sustain our spirit lives. You will learn what communion is and why neither
Catholics nor Protestants understand its real significance, which makes them both try to make it into some kind of mystical and reverent
“sacrament.”
CHAPTER EXCERPT:
When the Pilgrims stepped
off the Mayflower in 1620 they, according to a popular story, had a
problem. They tried to grow crops in soil that was infertile. They didn’t know
the difference between fertile and infertile. Then an Indian came along and
saved their crop. He did so by teaching them to catch fish and plant them along
with the seeds so the crop would have flesh to eat so it could grow. So, what
is fertile soil? It is soil that has dead things in it that are called “organic
matter.” Any dead things will do – leaves, wood, grass, vegetables, ants,
crickets, snails, frogs, mice, squirrels, raccoons, turkeys, deer, and even
humans.
We learn something from
this: In order to live and grow properly crops need some living thing to die
for them in order to become food. In fact, all living things in God’s creation,
from grass to worms to fish to people, cannot survive unless they eat some
other living thing. It’s called the “food chain.” The carnal, physical, old man
body must eat some other physical life form in order to live and grow. Which brings us to the other body, the spirit body.
The spirit body is a
real body. It is the pattern after which the physical body was made. Therefore
things that are true about the physical body are types or pictures of something
about the spirit body; in order to survive they both
need something alive to die in order to become life-giving food. Let’s examine
the food for the spirit body.
The “Lord’s Supper” or
“communion” has Roman Catholics and Protestants divided because of confusion
over what Christ meant when He said to eat the bread that was His body and to
drink the cup of His blood.
Roman Catholicism
developed the purest form of idolatry with its doctrine. It says the wafer of
bread at communion ceases to be bread at all; it miraculously becomes Jesus
Christ! It may still look like a wafer but it has physically changed into
Christ’s flesh and blood body. Catholics are taught to adore, worship, pray to,
genuflect before, and carry in procession the “consecrated” wafer because it
is God Almighty! It does not – like the statues of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
– merely serve as a reminder of the actual person; the wafer actually is
God. Pagan religions used to make statues that became their deity. The statue
was not just an image of their deity; it actually was their deity. That pure
idolatry is the essential core of Roman Catholicism; they take a physical
object and make it their deity. And while people are no longer burned at the
stake for rejecting that idolatrous doctrine, it remains 100% in effect in the
Roman Catholic institution today. The Catholic doctrine of communion is
incorrect.
The Protestants hang
their hat on the word “remembrance” in 1 Co 11:24,25
along with the fact that v.26 shows that communion is merely a picture
of the Lord’s death. To them the Lord’s Supper is just a reminder that the Lamb
of God died for our sins. Curiously, however, they try to make the simple
communion ritual into a deeply mystical experience with a theatrical air of
mournful gravity. In fact, the way they handle the bread or crackers and wine
or Welch’s with such formal religious awe is similar to the idolatry of
Catholicism. They are not practicing idolatry, but they are trying to
artificially create an atmosphere laden with “religious meaning” just as
Catholics do with their sacraments. Protestants are partly right about
communion because it is a remembrance of Christ’s death. But it is more
than that. Spirit bodies, like physical bodies, need food to eat or they will
die. But wait, didn’t I say spirit bodies can’t die and don’t even need to eat
from the tree of life in order to stay alive?! Hold on a minute, don’t get
ahead of me; we’ll get to that.
This chapter proves with
Scripture that only those who have been given everlasting life by God are
qualified to live in hell forever. Unsaved mortals have by definition never
been born again, do not have everlasting life, and cannot spend eternity
anywhere. This chapter goes through the Bible and shows that every time the
Bible talks about someone going to hell, that person is a child of God with everlasting
life – such as Lucifer and Judas, which helps bring out the meaning of Mat
25:41, Heb 6:4-6, and 2 Pet 2:20-22. That’s why there is not a single example
anywhere in the Bible of any pagan ever going to hell.
CHAPTER EXCERPTS:
If
God’s people with everlasting life are the only ones who can go to hell, you
might ask, why are there no examples in the Bible of God’s people going to
hell? And you’d feel pretty safe asking that question because if there were examples in the Bible someone would be preaching them...wouldn’t they? Well, you are about to
get a big lesson in how tradition makes the word of God of none effect because
there are plenty of examples of
Christians going to hell: Let’s answer the question, WHO ARE THE WICKED?
. . .
Once
we dump our human pride and our faith in men by realizing much of what
we’ve been taught and believed for generations has not been in the Bible (!),
we will gain a better appreciation for Ec 1
(history repeats itself), because today just before the Second Coming we are no
less blind, Scripturally ignorant, and bound by traditional doctrine than were
God’s people at the First Coming. And if we don’t let the Bible straighten us
out we, too, will despise Christ at His coming, reject
His doctrines, and prefer the traditional, philosophy-based morals and values
of the Antichrist. Once it sinks in that the wicked are Christians, that our
enemies really are they of our own Household (Mt 10:36), maybe we’ll get
serious about our Bible study and Christian walk, become dedicated soldiers
fighting for the cause of Christ by recognizing and doing something about
carnal Christians who act like puking dogs, and maybe we’ll stop being
politically active, effeminate conservatives who waste time trying to convince
a secular society of dogs to stop barking, humping, and vomiting.
The reason the Bible
talks about sex, marriage, divorce, and fornication is an important one: It is
impossible to fully understand salvation and how it works without understanding
what God has taught us about those subjects. Unfortunately, sex has become
taboo in modern Christianity. That’s one of the reasons you’ve never been
taught anything about these Bible subjects by your church or Bible school or
book on Christian doctrine. The other two reasons are your preacher is ignorant
of the subjects and he is afraid to seriously study them – he’d rather cling to
the vague religious traditions and societal morals that nobody ever taught
him! This chapter covers masturbation, incest, polygamy, and the Old Commission
and the Great Commission.
CHAPTER EXCERPTS:
Woman is a type of mankind, God’s people, His body, the church. Man
is a type of God. God and mankind cannot get together because mankind is
unclean, and this is pictured by the fact that man (type of God) should never
soil himself by touching a woman (type of sinful man) (1 Co 7:1; 1 Sa 21:4,5; Re 14:4). Therefore
we are supposed to be chaste virgins
(2 Co 11:2).
. . .
If having sex with – or touching – a woman is bad because we are to
be chaste virgins, how can a man and a woman (Christ and His bride) get
together? Through marriage, when a man and his wife become one flesh (Ge 2:24). Notice the very next verse (Ge 2:25) says they were both naked
without shame (just as you are not ashamed when you are by yourself and are
naked). That’s because when two marry and become one flesh, when they get naked
together they are uncovering their own nakedness, not someone else’s. In other
words, when a man has sex with his wife he is merely touching his own body, because she is his body. Yes, when a husband and
his wife have sex with each other it is exactly the same as if they
masturbated. That is how Christians can be married and still be chaste
virgins – they only touch their own bodies. And that is why – even though a
man is touching a woman – the marital bed is undefiled (He 13:4); because he isn’t touching a
woman, he’s touching himself, his own body (Ep
5:28,29).
Today’s Christians have two problems with this. First, because they
don’t understand how two become one
flesh, they stop short of believing
the word of God. They don’t accept it
by applying it to everyday life. The
proper Christian, though, doesn’t worry about how it happens, but why. Two
become one flesh by fiat. God simply decreed it; that’s all He has to do
to make something a fact. What He says must be our reality!
. . .
The reason “Bible” schools and the preachers they pump out teach
nothing about sex is they simply don’t know anything and are insecure. They are
vaguely aware of the inconsistencies and changes in the way “society” has
viewed sex over the decades and centuries, but they never seriously examine the
issue because they are afraid to challenge tradition or to question the
doctrinal soundness of denominational leaders living or dead. And they are
afraid to be considered “lustful”, “carnal”, “obsessed with sex”, or just
“weird.” So they continue to assume that “ethics” and “morals”, even though
they change with “the times”, are somehow Biblical, authoritative, and
unchanging “standards” that should shape our lives. They don’t realize how
inconsistent their thinking, their “values”, and their doctrines are…because
everybody else is just as confused and ignorant as they, and because they
justify themselves before men instead of by the word of God.
You will learn from the
Bible what marriage is and why it relates to the topics in the earlier chapter.
You will learn how consummation makes a person transition from being merely an espoused
wife into being a permanent wife – as in “one flesh.” And you’ll learn
that unless we make it to the marriage supper of the Lamb, we are but espoused
brides of Christ (2 Cor 11:2).
CHAPTER EXCERPT:
Marriage is a general word so you have to be careful about its
meaning. It can refer to the initial agreement between the two men because,
unless a later date is set, that is when the exchange of property takes place.
It can also mean the “ceremony”, such as a marriage supper, at which the
exchange is made public and official. And it can mean the act of consummation
because that is when the two become united. For example, the legal exchange of
property part of marriage in Ge 24:51 took
place between Bethuel (Rebekah’s
father) and Abraham’s servant who was acting on the behalf of Isaac in accordance
with Abraham’s instructions. And then the consummation part of marriage took
place in Ge 24:67. This important distinction
among the legal contract/agreement part of marriage, and the
finalizing/consummation part of marriage, and the evaluation/judgment part of
marriage (this judgment part of marriage takes place between the other two
parts and will be covered shortly) is missed or ignored by “eternal security”
advocates who fail to realize spiritual realities must agree with the physical
patterns established in the Bible.
Some Christians think a man who has sex with an unmarried woman is
automatically making her his wife because he has “consummated”…well, I don’t
know what they think he might have consummated. Maybe their problem is
they don’t know what consummate means. It is not a union; it’s
the completion, perfection, or finalizing of something that happened before.
Therefore it is not true that casual sex makes two people husband and wife.
Why? Because the woman still belongs
to another if her owner hasn’t agreed to give
her away and if there is no intent to acquire
a wife. In other words, if there is no legal transaction there is no deal to consummate. If the man and
woman are Christians, however, the man has defamed her and disgraced her
father. Therefore he is not only required to pay a fine to the father, he also
has an obligation to marry the daughter because most men wouldn’t be interested
in a woman humbled (Dt 22:28,29).
Even before the consummation occurs, however, a woman legally becomes a man’s wife at the
property exchange agreement. Joseph’s wife Mary is a perfect example. We know
Mary was a virgin until after Christ was born because Joseph “knew her not”
until then (Mt 1:25). Now note that
even though the marriage was not consummated, Mary is called Joseph’s “wife” (Mt 1:20,24).
Should we think the use of the word “wife” always means “finalized wife”
and therefore the consummation is not required for two to become inseparably
one? No, because Lk 2:5 tells us even though Mary was
already legally Joseph’s wife, which meant he could
take her with him to other towns like Bethlehem and get a room at an inn with
her, she was technically and specifically only his “espoused wife.”
Another good example is Dt 22:23,24.
Here we find that a woman who is only “betrothed” and is still a “virgin” is
legally the man’s “wife” even though the union has not been consummated. (Legally enough to authorize the death penalty for disregarding
that fact!) That means the word “wife” in the context of Mt 1:20,24 and Dt 22:24 only refers to
the initial, legal process part and meaning of marriage. Mary was Joseph’s wife
legally, and Joseph was her legal husband. It is imperative that we
understand this topic because, while we are legally Christ’s brides, His
wives, we are, like Mary, merely unconsummated espoused wives (2 Co 11:2). Why is that an important
point? Because of what the “that I may present you as a chaste virgin to
Christ” part of 2 Co 11:2 refers to. The outcome of an espousal is dependent
upon the groom’s being satisfied when he inspects his
bride. This is a type of Judgment.
The judgment part of marriage has been
forgotten. It takes place after the “legal” or “espousal” part of marriage
(salvation), and before the “finalization” or “consummation” part of marriage. When Joseph found out, before the consummation, that Mary was (as
he supposed) a fornicator rather than a chaste virgin he decided to put her
away (Mt 1:19). This
pre-consummation judgment is supposed to prevent a man from being fooled into
ending up with a wife he doesn’t really want. Because Jacob foolishly got drunk
at his wedding feast he not only skipped the judgment process and went straight
to the consummation part, he didn’t even know whom he was consummating (Ge 29:22,23,25)! But after the
consummation has occurred, putting away/divorce is not
possible because consummation is when the legal part of marriage (when two are merely “reckoned” to be one flesh) is superseded by reality. (The
legal prerequisite to consummation, which is the legal exchange of property, is
absent in cases of rape and consensual premarital and extramarital sex.) So it
would be fair to say the legal part
of marriage is a human transaction represented in Mt 19:5, and the post-judgment consummation
represents the divine procedure mentioned in Mt 19:6b.
An excellent description of this judgment (that is such an
important part of marriage) as well as the potential outcome of this judgment
is Dt 22:13-21. In it we learn that after
the legal part of marriage, the giving and the taking part in verses 13 and 16,
a man takes his new, legal bride to the bedroom in order to examine her so he
can make a judgment as to whether or not he will consummate the union. If he
finds she is not pure he may decide to return the property to the man who gave
her to him, as is his legal right. That is what putting away is: It is legally severing the legal bonds of marriage for cause. (God
has provided no means or cause to put asunder the consummated marriage because
it can’t be done.) The reason Joseph was going to put away his bride, Mary
(Mt 1:19), was he’d discovered, in the period between the legal giving and
taking part of marriage and the consummating part, that she was (as he
supposed) impure.
When the husband goes to the father with his finding that the
damsel is not a virgin, the parents have an opportunity to bring forth, for
example, the bloody tokens of her virginity (that they’ve carefully preserved
just in case this would become an issue) in order to prove her virtue (Dt 22:17). Notice that when Mary’s parents had absolutely
no evidence that could establish – to Joseph’s or to anybody else’s
satisfaction – the virtue of their obviously pregnant daughter (which made old bloody tokens irrelevant), God
the Father in effect saved her honor and her marriage by presenting to Joseph
the tokens of her virginity in accordance with His rules (cp. Dt 22:17 and Mt 1:20).
But if, during the pre-consummation examination/judgment, the bride
is found to be impure, she will be put away and executed (Dt 22:20,21)! Thus the Scriptures
make it clear that the part of the marriage process that has been ignored and
forgotten today is the most important
part – Judgment! How did that happen? Western civilization is built upon
philosophy and its doctrinal offspring, the Enlightenment, the independence and
sovereignty of the individual, the liberation of women from their God-ordained
role as servants, the proscription of human chattel, and the love affair with
equality. Because those ideas are so instinctive and
appealing to the Reason of the Natural carnal mind (because their veracity is
universally self-evident) they
were allowed to overrule the words in (any version of) the Bible because Reason has replaced revelation. With our lips we claim to believe the Bible, but
in practice we reveal ourselves to be unbelieving fornicators who have
squandered our Christian virginal purity. We then either shamelessly ignore the
judgment part of marriage that comes before
the consummation part, or convince ourselves Judgment is really a joyful
occasion at which Christ’s espoused brides receive varying numbers of rewards
based on their service. But the purpose of the judgment part of marriage is to
determine if the consummation will
even take place. Handing out rewards, duties, and responsibilities to wives in
God’s household has nothing to do with marriage; that happens later.
You will learn the
difference between fornication and adultery – and why divorce is permitted,
indeed, why divorce is only possible for the cause of fornication
– not adultery (Matt 19:9). And you’ll learn why death is the only thing that
can terminate a consummated marriage – and how that turns out to be a good deal
as far as our relations with Christ and the Devil are concerned.
CHAPTER EXCERPTS:
As noted in the previous chapter, divorce is a legal procedure. (In this chapter I use divorce as a synonym for the Scriptural term putting away because of modern usage, customs, and legal
procedures. However, it may be that the “bill” or “writing” of “divorcement”
invented by Moses (Mt 19:7,8) is, in God’s eyes, neither efficacious (Mt 5:32b) nor the same as “putting
away” a wife.) But no legal procedure (no matter what it’s called) can do
anything to keep a person from dying if you divorce his head from his body – as
in cutting his head off. In a consummated marriage the man and wife
become one flesh; he is the head and she is the body. And that
is why divorce, for any reason, legal or otherwise, is just not possible
when a union has been consummated. However, the legal giving and taking part of
marriage can, before the consummation, be reversed by another legal procedure.
But in order to satisfy the law, in order that the divorce/putting away be
legal, the divorce/putting away must be based on a legal reason. And according
to the Lord Jesus Christ the only legal reason for putting away a wife is fornication (Mt 19:9).
Many people confuse fornication and adultery, but it’s really very
simple: Fornication is premarital sin; adultery is post-marital sin. Because
Mary was pregnant out of wedlock it was believed she was a fornicator (Jn 8:41). On the other hand if you are married, “stepping out” on
your spouse is adultery (Le 20:10). Notice in Mt 19:9 the Lord’s
use of fornication and adultery is consistent with the meanings
of the words. While we’re in that verse let’s look at another common
misunderstanding based on tradition. Some say Mt 19:9 can be used as a proof
text for New Testament monogamy because it means a married man can’t marry again
without committing adultery. But since the verse doesn’t say that, they are merely letting their tradition force a meaning
that is not only not in the verse, but one that contradicts the rest of
Scripture and is inconsistent with the picture of salvation painted by the
Bible’s teachings on sex, marriage, judgment, consummation, divorce and
damnation. What then is meant by the verse when it says a man who illegally divorces his wife, and is
therefore still legally married to her, is an adulterer if he marries again? It
means the same thing Ja 2:9,10,11
does: If you transgress the law by divorcing your wife for an illegal reason, you are guilty of
adultery, murder, stealing, etc., because any
transgression makes you a lawbreaker, a sinner. That is, you’re guilty of
any and all sins because you’ve broken
the law! You see, the problem isn’t this sin or that sin, it’s becoming a lawbreaker, and any sin makes you an outlaw. (There is a speck-in-your-eye,
beam-in-mine lesson on forgiveness in that.) The Bible teaches a lot about sin
and forgiveness that is ignored: If you commit a sin, anything else you do that
isn’t a sin becomes sin (Hag 2:11-14) because it’s done by a
filthy sinner. In other words an outlaw is an outlaw until the law has been
satisfied. But in Mt 19:9 the Lord goes further than that by saying an innocent
man who participates in sin by marrying an illegally-divorced woman becomes an
adulterer. That is what the verse is about, not polygamy or monogamy. This is
supported by reasoning with Scripture: Mt 19:9 cannot be saying marrying another woman (polygamy) is adultery.
Why? Because God never would have sanctioned polygamy in the
Old Testament if polygamy violated
His Commandment against adultery (Ex 20:14).
Once the union is consummated the bonds of marriage can be broken only by death (Ro 7:2). Therefore a Christian’s consummated union with Christ can never be broken since
neither Christ nor the saint can ever
die. That’s the good news. The bad news is consummation with Christ does
not happen at the new birth; our entire Christian walk takes place before the
marriage supper, the Judgment by Christ, and consummation. It is our Christian
walk that will be scrutinized in accordance with the word of God in order to
determine if we are chaste virgins or premarital (pre-consummation)
fornicators. Fornicators will be put away and damned. The Judgment Seat of
Christ will not be a joyous event; the Bible attaches the word “terror” to it (2 Co 5:11). In fact, Matt Seven and
five other unprepared virgins show that surprise
is another element some Christians will experience at Judgment.
Matt Seven? I lump the “many” rejected
Christians at Judgment in Mt 7:21-23
into one person named Matthew Seven. Matt Seven was saved, was a spirit, and
therefore was part of the spiritual Kingdom of God. He wanted to inherit the promise, which includes the new Kingdom
of Heaven and its everlasting, physical real estate (Mt 7:21), but was
disinherited/divorced by Christ because Matt disregarded the first half of Mt 6:33 by doing what 1 Jn 2:15
told him not to do. Matt knows he is saved and is not lying to his Judge when
he defends himself by listing his works, his fruit of the Spirit, the evidence
of his faith (v.22). He has a reason for arguing; he believes in “eternal
security” and thinks if he can just prove he is a son of Abraham (as if God
didn’t know) then he can’t be cast
away! But Matt, like too many others, doesn’t understand sex and marriage – in
spite of the fact that they are obviously important because of God’s use of
them as types of His relationship with His bride. Matt thinks “once married
always married” because he saw some guys behind pulpits wave their arms and
shout, “God doesn’t have an eraser!” (God uses a blotter: Ex 32:32,33; Dt 9:14; 29:20; Re 3:5.)
This and other traditional clichés, along with society’s conservative “moral
values”, became the foundation of his thinking because, having never bothered
to study things like sex, marriage, divorce, and fornication in the Bible, he
had no alternative but to believe what seemed right in his own eyes.
That’s why, when an incredulous Matt Seven is told by Christ it is
legal to put him away because “I never knew
you,” Matt has no idea the meaning of knew
in this context includes/means consummated
(Ge 4:1,17), or
even that it is a legal term because
he never examined the connection between sex, judgment, and marriage (Dt 22:13-21; Ge
24:67; 2 Co 11:2). (To verify it is born-again Christians who are put away
by Christ at Judgment, notice the word see in both Jn
3:3 and Lk 13:28.) That’s why Matt, when he found out he was being rejected at
Judgment, argued by listing proofs of his Christianity. David would
never have done that because David didn’t believe in eternal security (Ps
51:1-11). But Matt and many other Jews (including Nicodemus in Jn 3) did not understand salvation and
thought God would never mistreat one of His wives by throwing her into hell.
That’s why one of the things Matt did was to remind Christ that he – like all
brides of Christ – took God’s name upon himself and therefore did his works in
His name. Christ knew many Jews thought eternal security/no divorce was God’s
policy. Therefore He picked up on Matt’s marriage analogy in order to teach
that what the Jews did know and practice about marriage should be applied to
God at Judgment: “I can legally put you away because I never
knew/consummated you.”
. . .
Another example of how ignorance of the Scriptures allows false
doctrine to flourish is Jn 10:28,29, which is one of the darlings of eternal security
advocates. They readily admit the “I give unto them eternal life; and they
shall never perish” part is not a true proof because – like Jn
3:16 – it could be only referring to the fact that the new birth replaces
the mortality of the flesh with the immortality of the spirit. It is the word
“neither” that makes this passage so important to them because it signifies a
change of topic: Even if the “eternal life” part doesn’t prove eternal
security, they think the part after neither is an indisputable proof
because it says nobody can pluck anyone who is in Christ from His/His Father’s
hand.
The problem with Jn 10 as a “proof” is it
only lasts for five more chapters: In Jn
15:1,2,6 Christ says the Father, who is greater
than all, is the very one who casts Christians out of His hand! V.1
identifies Christ as the vine, and the Father as the husbandman/pruner. V.2
says every branch “in me” (in Christ) that proves to be
unfruitful is pruned by the Father. And then v.6 says these pruned Christians
that didn’t “abide in me” are cast into the fire and burned. Abide means
to stay, to not leave, to endure. So, the
Father casts those Christians who were “in Christ” but didn’t mature and bear fruit
into hell.
The point is, the more we
understand the Bible the more our modern doctrinal inconsistencies will jump
out and get our attention. What we are discussing is important.
How could David eat the shewbread, which it was not lawful to do? How could the
priests profane the sabbath, which it was not lawful
to do? And how could a man who had a sheep that fell into a pit on the sabbath, work on the sabbath by rescuing that sheep? Or,
more appropriately, how could they do those things and yet be guiltless
(Matthew 12:1-13)? This chapter explains how expediency is
connected with being a mature Christian and how it sometimes helps us better
carry out the will of God.
CHAPTER EXCERPTS:
The law is a good deal because it allows us to be legally reckoned
dead to it. That not only means we can be legally espoused to Christ, it means
legally the law doesn’t apply to us. That allows us to make stupid mistakes as
young Christians and it allows us to sidestep the law when it threatens to
hinder the cause of Christ. But the fact that we still must confess our sins and obtain forgiveness for them means, while
we can legally reckon ourselves to be
free from the law, the law actually still exists. The law, in fact, is so real
that if we don’t obtain forgiveness for our sins we will be put away as impure
fornicators. All of that is commonly understood. But let’s look at the marital
side of the coin instead of the sin side.
Just as we are only legally reckoned to be dead to the law and free
from sin, so are we only legally reckoned to be dead and freed from our union
with the Devil. This has implications for both Christians who “lose it” and
those who faithfully endure to the end.
When a Christian becomes an unfaithful slut and is put away by
Christ as a fornicator, that Christian is no longer in Christ and is no longer
legally sealed by His substitutionary death from the
law. The slut is cast away and is no longer under grace – he’s under the Law!
That means he now has to answer to the Law (not the Lawgiver) for his
sins. And the Law demands death for sin. The slut is also legally Satan’s wife
again, and is in deep doo-doo because the only way to be freed from a
consummated union is for death to do them part. Both Satan and the slut,
however, have everlasting life. Therefore, the only way out is for Christ to
die, have His death apply to the slut in order to free him from Satan, and
birth a new spirit body that can become espoused to Christ. Alas, Christ
already did all of that for the slut once, and He will not do it a second time
(He 10:10,18,26; Jn
13:7-10). Therefore, the slut, with no way to be freed from his union with
Satan, will pay the wages of sin with the second death in the lake of fire.
The
faithful Christian who endures to the end finds himself in a different
situation. When he dies his mortal body is buried and rots in the ground while
his soul and other body go to the third heaven. Being in the third heaven,
however, isn’t the end of his problem because he is still only legally
espoused to Christ, because Christ’s death only legally freed him from
Satan – but not actually.
. . .
The faithful Christian in the third heaven, therefore, joins the
saints who have gone before us in watching you and me (He 12:1) to see if we’ll endure to the end or if Satan will prevail
over the church…because they can’t make it without us (He 11:39,40). If Satan wins, to the victor go the spoils (2 Sa 16:22) and we all remain Satan’s brides to serve him
forever. If Christ wins, we still
can’t marry Him because He won’t commit adultery by marrying Satan’s wives. And
we faithful saints have no way to terminate our marriage to Satan because we
have everlasting life and, as victors, won’t be thrown into the lake of fire.
That’s why Satan must die in the lake of fire to free us from our marriage to
him. Satan’s real death, therefore, must happen
prior to the marriage supper of the
Lamb that we may turn our legal espousal to Christ into a real
marital bond.
This chapter explains
what fornication is and shows that sexual transgressions are but one small
facet of fornication. You will understand why fornication is the only
sin that is justification for divorce. In other words, you will learn why
Christianity is full of non-sexual fornicators on their way to a divorce they
won’t understand because they never learned their espoused Husband’s
Instruction Book (Language that mocks tradition is used.)
CHAPTER EXCERPT:
Ge
38:15-23: Judah was a good Christian
man who would never engage in the unlawful sex defined in Le 18. So when he
wanted sex he openly went to a girl
he thought was a pagan whore (because Christian girls were not allowed to be
whores according to Dt 23:17). Many people erroneously think
Judah was a hypocrite because, right after going out and SCREWING a prostitute, he was going
to have Tamar put to death for also having sex outside of marriage (Ge 38:24). But Judah had not sinned, had
done nothing that offended anybody’s “morals” (because pagan morality was not a
part of Christian society), and didn’t have to put up with loudmouthed,
opinionated, Enlightened Scripture wresters and tradition-bound Bible rejecters
of the twenty-first century who thought the morality and ethics they never
studied and didn’t understand were probably
right and probably pleasing to God
even if they didn’t come from Him or His Rule Book. (It’s not a sin to write an
occasional run-on sentence, is it? And if it is, could we properly invoke
expediency to make run-on sentences lawful as long as it’s for the good of the
church?!) Anyway, all of the above is why Judah’s whoring was done openly and
without shame or fear that God or man would disapprove. Even Tamar knew it was
not sinful for Judah to pick up a prostitute…because he was a widower
(Ge 38:12). That means he was not
violating any restrictions placed on married Christian men such as Pv 5:3,5,8,15,18,19 and Mt 5:27,28. When Tamar decided to dress
up like a prostitute it certainly wasn’t because she was afraid a good
Christian like Judah would reject her offer as sinful – what a stupid strategy
that would be! No, she knew there was a long list of things in her favor: Judah
was a widower; the SCREWING would not be sinful in
general or FORNICATION in particular; with her body
she figured she would be as alluring to Judah as Abishag
was supposed to be to David (1 Ki 1:1-4); it was common and legitimate for pagan
prostitutes to cater to Christian men, so Tamar ran no risk of being run out of
town as an undesirable element while she waited for Judah to come along; and
she knew Judah could afford the service. Unless you allow tradition to make the
word of God of none effect you’ll see Judah did nothing wrong. But it was a
different story when a Christian woman went whoring; the death penalty was
called for and was supported by all good Christians. (Therefore, as Christ’s
women we are whoring whenever we are not faithful in our Christian walk.)
Modern Christians whose traditional conservative morals cause them to think
Judah was guilty of fornication and to think his son, Pharez,
was born of fornication don’t realize that if they are correct it means our
Lord was born of fornication: When Judah SCREWED Tamar he was contributing to the ancestry of
the Lord Jesus Christ (Ge 38:29; Ru 4:12,18-22; Mt 1:3; Lk 3:33). I say again, Judah was not sinning and
the Lord was not born of the fornication that modern Christian tradition
and morality say He was. Modern Christians do err by not knowing the
Scriptures, by letting their religious traditions make the word of God of none
effect, and by making the Pharisees in Jn 8:41 correct when they implied Christ
was born of fornication. Modern Christianity is inexcusably apostate.
Some
well-meaning Christians will argue that places like Pv 7 prohibit unmarried Christians from
consorting with prostitutes. While we’re dealing with this it might be quicker
if we add the fact that these same people say Pv 20:1 and 23:20,21,27-34
prohibit Christians from drinking intoxicating liquor such as beer, whiskey,
and wine. But these are just the old Mt
15:2 scams of the Pharisees – creating sins not in the Bible by allowing
the moral traditions of men to make the word of God of none effect – and are
easily dealt with. When you read the above verses, note that they are warnings and not prohibitions. Since tradition is a very powerful, influential, and
persuasive force we must be careful when we address these issues. For example,
I could never win a debate on these issues if we stayed in the three proverbs
above. Why? Because tradition makes us think those warnings are or should be prohibitions…until we put things into perspective
with the rest of the Bible:
·
Pv 23:2,20,21
are warnings about eating food. But it’s still permissible to eat food.
·
In the Old Testament
God’s people were not merely warned about the dangers of marrying pagans; it
was recommended that they not do it. But they were still permitted to do so.
·
In the New Testament we
are warned about the dangers of marrying anyone, Christian or pagan (1 Co
7:32-35). In fact, it is recommended that we not marry at all (1 Co 7:1,7,8)! But we are still permitted to do so.
Why are
we warned about things that are lawful such as alcohol, Christian wives,
prostitutes, Christian husbands, food, and unsaved spouses, to name just a few?
Because as Christian warriors who are supposed to be in
control of our bodies we should be aware of the lusts and distractions that can
get in our way. Different people have problems with different things.
The wise head will take all of this into account when handling and controlling
whatever weakness his body may have. Don’t you know what fasting is all about? It’s about learning, practicing, and
exercising mastery over your body in the area of the most powerful and most
frequently occurring lust you experience. There’s a saying in naval warfare,
“Pick out the biggest and commence firing!” That’s what fasting is all about:
Food is our biggest lust. When you fast you should be learning to apply the
self-control you are exercising over an activity that is both legitimate and
necessary for physical life to everything else in life. That’s how you learn to
rule well your own body so you can not only just say no! to
your body at various times as is appropriate, but also that your
well-disciplined body will instantly obey
you even unto death! That is, after all, the kind of disciplined servant
you are striving to be for the Lord, isn’t it? Isn’t it?
You will learn that it
was Reason that made God’s rules of slavery in Leviticus 25:39-55 of none
effect in the modern church. You will learn why we are God’s slaves rather than
just His hired servants. And you’ll learn other things related to this topic –
such as why God searched among the animals for an
help that would be meet to serve Adam.
CHAPTER EXCERPT:
God wrote rules for slavery in Le
25:39-55. Christians were to treat fellow Christians indebted to them as
hired servants rather than as bondservants (v.39,40).
Christian servants were to serve until the seventh year (Dt 15:12-15) or until the jubilee (Le
25:40), at which time they were to be released. Once a Christian servant is
freed, he is not to be put back into servitude (Je 34:15-17). Therefore, if a Christian servant never wants to
leave his master’s service, he can – before he is released – proclaim his
undying love for his master and be made a servant forever (Dt 15:16,17).
If one of God’s people wanted bondmen and bondwomen (slaves), he would
purchase only heathen (Le 25:44,45). Bondservants, unlike hired servants, were owned and were the property of the owner
(see the list of property in Dt 5:21, and then see how God’s people
forgot their Owner, something even an ass doesn’t do according to Is 1:2-4). That’s why a hired servant, who is not the master’s
property, is not a member of the master’s household; but a purchased
bondservant, as property, is a member
of the household according to Le
22:10,11. Therefore we must consider ourselves full-time slaves of Christ,
not independent hired servants, because it makes a big difference whether we
are members of a household or not – and whose household it is (Le 22:12,13).
That’s why Christian women would remain under a male guardian (1 Co 11:10,15; Is
4:1) such as their brother or son…or even another man to whom they were
given (Jn 19:26,27).
Slaves, because they were property, were to be passed down in
families as an inheritance just like any other possession (Le 25:46). Verse 46
also shows that God intends the institution of slavery to exist forever. I’ll say that again in order to
emphasize the difference in God’s eyes between Christians and dogs: Christian servants
were to be let go at certain intervals as we saw above, but unsaved
bondservants were to be slaves forever
as part of our inheritance.
According to God’s word, both the slave trade (as defined in the
Bible) and slave merchants are acceptable to God. However, because both slaves
and prostitutes were dogs (unclean pagans),
the money made from those legitimate businesses could not be used in the house
of God for certain things (Dt 23:18).
This topic couldn’t be spelled out more plainly in the Bible, so if
your church never taught you the truth about this easy subject, what
makes you think the stuff it taught you about more complicated doctrine is any less antichrist? It is fear that makes Christians
prefer blindness. Fear causes them to treat the Bible as a mere history book
with neutral reports about “how they lived back then”, rather than as a Book
containing teachings carefully selected by God for our instruction. We claim
the Bible to be the sole source of all our doctrine and the source of all we do
in our daily lives, but that is a lie whose motivation is fear. Christians know what the Bible says but they are afraid of the disapproval of the world and the
god of this world, which causes them to worship (honor and glorify) Satan by
conforming to his leaven. That is backwards. We are to fear God and worship
(honor and glorify) Him by conforming to His word.
God had slavery in mind in Ge 2:18-20: In
v.18 He decided Adam needed a servant. And then He allowed Himself to
look foolish to our carnal minds by wasting time going through all the animals
in search of a help meet for Adam! What, didn’t our all-knowing God already know the animals would prove
unsuitable? Of course He did. And since the Bible is not a neutral history
book, God put this search among the animals in there to teach us something: We
learn that, just as God rules over servants/slaves (us), He wants us to have
servants/slaves over whom we rule and reign. And He wants those servants to be animals. He has always wanted our
servants to be unsaved mortal humans, not
fellow Christians, so He had Adam look among giraffes and aardvarks to let us
know He wants dogs – unsaved humans –
to be the animals (Ec 3:18-20) that serve us. He created Eve
as Adam’s servant as a type of the human animals that would later appear when
He divided the human race into saints and dogs in Abraham’s day. Later He put
His instructions regarding slavery in the Bible to show us that unsaved humans
will be our servants forever. (Notice that race
has nothing to do with any of this.) Any Christian, therefore, who does not
learn to overcome instinctive Reason will, because he
thinks no differently from dogs, be unfit to rule.
You will learn the
difference between the old man and the new man. You’ll learn why Christ was flesh
and blood before the cross (Heb 2:14), and why He was flesh and bone
in His resurrected body (Lk 24:39). You’ll learn that
the war rages between our mortal body and our spirit body. You’ll learn about
the difference between our mortal physical bodies, our spirit bodies of the new
birth, and our combined physical/spirit glorified bodies of the future. And you’ll
learn other related topics such as who Mystery, Babylon the Great Whore is,
when we get our circumcised hearts/glorified bodies, and why certain foods have
been clean or unclean depending on which period in history you are talking
about.
CHAPTER EXCERPT:
CLEAN
AND UNCLEAN MEAT: Failure
to distinguish between our two bodies, the old man and the new man, causes
well-intentioned Christians to unwittingly glorify Satan’s whore – our fallen,
sinful, corrupt, physical old-man body. For example, they take 1 Co 6:19, then fail to compare it with
v.15 (which would show it’s
referring to the new man), and use it to justify their doctrine that smoking
cigarettes, eating pork and leavened bread, etc., defile the temple of the Holy
Ghost – which they think is the sinful, smelly, waste-producing physical old
man! They don’t actually pronounce the words old man when saying we are the temple of the Holy Ghost because
they don’t understand the Bible well enough to really know what they’re talking
about; they lack awareness. The Pharisees had exactly the same problem; they
focused on the old man by thinking that, because they were saved and were
physical descendants of Abraham, they had it made. That’s why the Lord rebuked
them for not knowing they should focus on Christ’s body, the new man, not
Satan’s old-man body (Jn 3:2-6,9,10).
God’s people were interested in making the old man (and its sepulchers) look
good on the outside because they lacked the Biblical understanding that would
enable them to be aware of the need to preserve the new man from corruption,
because if any Christian defiles his new man, which is the temple of God, him
shall God “destroy” (1 Co 3:17). (We
saw when discussing Mt 10:28 on page
D7-1,2 destroy
means to be thrown into hell – a destination only the new-man/born-again body
can reach.) By focusing on the old man the Pharisees missed the point of Old
Testament laws such as circumcision, unclean food, etc. Christ used Mk 7:14-16, which illustrates the
difference between the old man and the new, to rebuke and educate them. Sadly,
Christ then found out His own disciples, who’d caused the clash by offending
the Pharisees when they “defiled” their physical bodies (Mk 7:2), did
not understand the important distinction between the old man and the new,
either (v.17). That means the disciples in their ignorance agreed with
the Pharisees and “all the Jews” (v.3) that eating with unwashen hands did defile the temple of God. So the really
sad part is, believing in their hearts it was sin, they did it anyway! That is sin. The Lord, exasperated again
with His disciples, explained that the old-man body isn’t the issue. The issue
is whom you are inside. If your soul allows evil things to come out of you (by
not ruling well over carnal Reason), they defile you.
Pork never was unclean from a physical standpoint. People today
waste time talking about how terribly pigs are raised and how flawed is their
digestive tract. Irrelevant. God only declared animals
to be clean and unclean when He wanted them to typify the condition of humans.
Note, for example, that Adam and all of his descendants were Christians. As a
picture of that, all animals were clean and could be eaten.
When God divided the human race in Noah’s day: There were “unclean”
humans who would “miss the boat” and there were those who found grace in the
eyes of the Lord and would spend a year at sea in the navy, and to typify that
division God declared some animals to be clean and others to be unclean (Ge 7:1,2). Then
when Noah stepped off the ark (Ge 8:20) he made
a clean animal sacrifice (type of the Lamb without blemish on the cross), and
the human race became homogeneous again: all people were Christian descendants
of Noah. True to form, God told Noah the unclean animals were now clean (Ge 9:3).
As we know, God later divided the human race in Abraham’s day. Only
this time He didn’t drown anybody; He made their offspring dogs. The Jews
became His people; dogs did not. Therefore clean and unclean animals
again made their appearance (Le 11).
Then the clean Lamb on the cross instituted the New Testament and
opened the gospel to all mankind. With the human race again homogeneous (Ac 10:28,34; Mk
16:15), God again made all animals clean (Ac 10:13-15) to symbolize that fact. There are indications that in
the future when we rule with Christ some or all of the old ceremonies, feast
days, and laws will be reinstated. I believe one of those reinstated laws will
be clean and unclean meats to symbolize the difference between the ruling class
of saints and the working class of dogs. That would be consistent.
Some people think Peter’s vision in Ac 10 should not be taken
literally when it declares all meats to be clean. They think the figurative
meaning – opening the gospel to Gentiles – should be its only meaning.
Obviously they’ve never noticed or understood any of the above. Neither can
they come up with any plausible figurative meaning for the words kill and slay in Ac 10:13 and 11:7.
Those words are crucial to understanding the passages. Yes, God now approves of
both killing and eating all kinds of animals because the Great Commission makes
all kinds of animals/humans clean/eligible for the gospel.
This chapter helps put
into perspective the fact that we, the church, are the body of Christ. It will
help you understand why the past heroes of the Bible have not and cannot
receive the promise – and cannot be made perfect – without us!
(Heb 11:39,40). Therefore, since we are compassed
about by those heroes who are witnessing our Christian fight (Heb 12:1), let us
lay aside every secular weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, look
unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith, and run with patience the race
that is set before us.
CHAPTER EXCERPT:
In He 11:39,40 notice that Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David,
etc., have not received “the promise.” They are
with the Lord in His Kingdom of God, but they are only hoping to inherit the new Kingdom of Heaven. They have not yet
inherited that promise because they cannot do it “without us.”
Why can’t they inherit it without us? Well, here’s how the usual
answer goes: “The Old Testament and its animal sacrifices could not take away
sin (He 10:4). Therefore, the Old
Testament saints could not receive the promise until the Lamb of God died on
the cross to take away the sins of the world.” That’s a reasonable guess until
you realize He 11:39,40 was written after Christ had
taken away the sins of the world. The sins of the Old Testament saints were
already paid for when it was written, that’s why they were in Heaven when it
was written! And they are still waiting to inherit the promise.
One reason they can’t inherit the promise is the new heavens and
new earth are not finished yet. The present earth took seven days to make. The
first temple took seven years (1 Ki 6:37,38). We, the house or
temple built without hands, will take seven thousand years. And that is how
long the new heavens and new earth will take.
Another reason the Old Testament saints can’t receive the
inheritance (even New Testament saints can’t receive it yet) is the war is
still undecided. That’s what 1 Ti 2:15
is referring to. In it the “woman” (a type of the church) will only be saved if her children continue in the faith. The purpose of the Old
Commission and the Great Commission comes into play here: The church will only
be saved, first, if succeeding
generations retain the doctrinal purity of the literal word of God, and second,
if those new generations keep
the faith. Now are you beginning to see why we are supposed to give our lives
for the welfare of the church? Does Pv 22:6 take on increased significance? Do you see why He 12:1
immediately follows 11:39,40, and do you now
understand why 12:1 begins with Wherefore?
And why chapter 12 is an exhortation to keep the faith?
1 Th
3:8 is
another indication that even our fellow New Testament saints who have gone
before cannot make it without us. It says the same thing He 11:40 says: They only make it if we, the succeeding generations,
their “offspring” if you will, keep the faith. Now you know why godly children (1 Ti 3:4,12) are so important to the “care
of the church” (1 Ti 3:5).
If you put it into perspective you can see that Christ did all the
important stuff and we do the legwork. As His body we continue His work, which
is Christ doing the work as long as our works are obedient
manifestations of Him in accordance with the Bible. (If our works are not in
accordance with the Blueprint/Bible, we’ll still be building a house but it
won’t be the house of God (Ps 127:1; Mt
7:24-27), it’ll be the synagogue of Satan. There is no substitute for
knowing and following the Blueprint.) That is how we keep the gates of hell at
bay so the dead saints, we, our disciples who live after us, and their future
disciples, can inherit the promise. That’s what 1 Co 15:29 is all about: We get baptized and continue the race for
the dead saints who have gone before, and we prepare our disciples to do the
same after we’re gone. Interestingly enough, our spiritual forefathers
understood this and knew a lot of what they did was not for themselves, but for
you and me (1 Pe
1:10-14).
This means slothful, do-nothing saints who aren’t working toward
being experts on the Bible, and saints whose doctrine is wrong, and saints who
are Enlightened, are very bad for the dead saints and
for us. The slothful ones who are not gathering with Christ are against Him.
And the ones who have accepted the leaven of the Pharisees are sabotaging us
from within. Obviously, instructing them in the way of truth is important. But
just as most children need firm discipline until they mature, so will most
Christians. Discipline in the form of public and private rebuking must return
to Christianity. Church discipline needs to increase in number and severity.
But we live in a willful, democratic society, and most carnal Christians will
not repent – they’ll sue you (1 Co 6:1,6). They
must be shunned quickly and completely lest they drag the church down to hell
with them. I cannot overemphasize that.
In what is undoubtedly
the dullest chapter in the book you will learn about an important topic that
many Christians haven’t the interest or patience to study.
A lack of understanding of this topic contributes to misunderstandings about
salvation, Abraham’s bosom, eternal security, and the immortality of the soul.
In order to break law and grace down into easily-understandable categories you
will learn to differentiate the First Testament (also called the Law of sin and
death); the law of mortality; the Old Testament; the Second Testament (also
called the Law of Grace); the state of grace; the scepter of grace; the New
Testament; and why some of those laws are capitalized and some are not. In
spite of the overall dull and plodding pace required to study this chapter, you
will find oases of sub topics that are fascinating to the student of God’s word,
and will be thrilled as you better understand Biblical events and how they
relate to God’s various laws and Laws.
CHAPTER EXCERPT:
Why does the wages of sin have to be death? Because true
Law is a Testament. And a Testament is based on the death of the Testator. Because true death and the word forever go together, a true
Law/Testament is permanent/forever. Lesser laws, however, are temporary because
they are not based on true death; they are based on decrees and on the pseudo
deaths of mortal sacrifices. So God created
the First Testament Law when He made His warning to Lucifer, and it went into effect when Lucifer slew the Lamb (Re 13:8). At that point the Law of sin
and death became irrevocable. At that point two laws were in effect. The first
is what the good angels remained under – the stressful and temporary pseudo law
of the scepter of grace. I say pseudo law because it was temporary; it was not
(yet) a Testament/Law. And the second law was the First Testament Law dedicated
by the death of the Testator, which irrevocably damns anyone under it to death
in the lake of fire.
It is important to understand what death is and what it isn’t,
because the distinction will help us understand the different types of law. The
lake of fire teaches us that true death is everlasting torment – nothing
else is real death. Real death requires
everlasting life. Mortal “death” on the other hand is not real death, just as mortal “life” is not real life – as we saw in
the chapter on The Quick and the Dead.
That’s why mortal death is referred to in the Bible as sleep (Dt 31:16; Jb 14:12;
Ps 13:3; Da 12:2; Lk 8:52,53; Jn 11:11-14; 1 Co 15:51; 1 Th 4:14); mortals can be resurrected/awakened. But
death in the lake of fire is never called sleep because nobody dozes off in the
lake of fire and nobody is ever resurrected.
How was it possible for Lucifer to dedicate the First Testament by
slaying the Testator/Lamb back at the foundation of the world? Didn’t the Lamb
have eternal life, and didn’t mortality first show up later with Adam and Eve?
Yes to both points. To understand the first point keep in mind that true death
is living in torment forever and read 2
Sa 18:33; 19:1-4; Jn 8:58; Re 5:6. We learn that
God, as typified by King David, was deeply grieved by the rebellion and death
of His beloved son, Lucifer. (If you understand the irrevocable finality of the
First Testament Law that condemns Lucifer to death you’ll understand how our
omnipresent God already views Lucifer as dead.) And because God transcends time
and space, even the past and future are always part of His present. Therefore,
the hurt, pain, and anguish He felt as a result of Lucifer’s murderous enmity
and subsequent death sentence will, like the torment of the lake of fire, never fade for Him. You and I can have
our hurt and tears wiped away, but God will always be present with the anguish
of that awful betrayal. In other words, it is a mistake to view the slaying of
the Lamb back in eternity as being like our mortal pseudo death; the death the
Lamb suffered was real death –
everlasting torment. That’s why Re 5:6 shouldn’t be read as, “stood a Lamb with
its throat slashed” (as is sometimes pictured in books); it should be read as,
“stood a Lamb with tears on his face
in everlasting torment.”
But, you ask, could that tearful kind of real and everlasting
death, as opposed to a bloody kind of mortal death, satisfy the Biblical
requirement for blood in places like He
9:16,18? Yes, for two reasons:
1. God says history repeats itself (Ec 1:9,10). With
that in mind let’s review what happened when the Second Testament was dedicated by the death of the Lamb of God on
the cross: Christ was truly immortal God and truly mortal man, which is why He
had two different kinds of blood (1
Jn 5:6). This fact was revealed to the world in Jn 19:34. The water in that verse
was not stagnant blood that had settled into clear serum and blood like many
ignorant people claim (you’d need a much longer period of time or a centrifuge
for that), it was God’s blood as mentioned in Ac 20:28. And we know God’s blood is the water blood, not the red
blood (D17-1). Now notice that sorrow
is linked to death in Mt 26:38, and agony is linked to both sweat
(water) and blood in Lk 22:44. This torment/death can only be
eternal death if it occurs either a) in the lake of fire or b) in God for Whom all events are always in the present. Therefore when we
apply Ec 1:9,10 to all of
this we learn that the First Testament, like the Second Testament, was
dedicated by the clear blood of the immortal Lamb when, in tormented pain
caused by His beloved Lucifer’s betrayal, He shed His water in the form of
tears – just like the water He later shed in the garden of Gethsemane and on
the cross. In this way both the First Testament and the Second Testament were
made everlasting Laws by the death of the Testator and were dedicated with His
immortal water/blood…which makes robes clean and white – not red (Re 7:14).
2. Mortal death, even
Christ’s, could not produce an everlasting Testament. And mortal blood, even Christ’s, could not dedicate an everlasting Law.
Therefore, the immortal water from the Lamb on the cross is what
dedicated the Second Testament, and the red mortal blood from the Lamb
on the cross is what dedicated the New Testament. (Yes, the New Testament is
different from the Second Testament, just like the Old Testament is different
from the First Testament.)
Understanding
what real death is allows us to realize God didn’t dream up the everlasting
torment of the lake of fire; He just duplicated the everlasting pain Lucifer’s
sins (and our sins) are putting Him through forever. His love and His mercy are
truly great.
Did you ever wonder why
some denominations use verses like “Knowing that a man is not justified by the
works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ…”
(Gal 2:16) and “For by grace are ye saved, through faith…Not of works…” (Eph
2:8,9) to show that we are saved by faith alone; and some other
denominations use verses like “What doth it profit, my brethren, if a man say
he have faith, and have not works? Can faith save him?…faith,
if it hath not works, is dead, being alone…Was not Abraham our father justified
by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?…Ye see then how
that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only…faith without works is
dead…” (Jam 2:14-28) to show that we need to be saved by works? Wonder
no more. A careful and detailed verse-by-verse treatment of this important
doctrine will teach you to notice things you have never been taught to pay
attention to before. For example, go back over the above verses and other
related verses in the Bible to see that works, which are required of us,
are different from works of the law, which are never required of
us. This goes along with the fact that the law is a curse that saves no one,
and that is why the New Testament carefully explains the difference between works
of the law and good works.
CHAPTER EXCERPT:
If I wanted to get you to believe in some traditional doctrine I’d
join an established denomination in order to gain credibility. If I had the
money I’d also pay to attend a “Bible” college and try to graduate with a D- or
better. I might also try for a D- or better in graduate school so I could be
called “doctor.” Then, when I applied for a job as your preacher, I’d preach an
impassioned sermon on some big denominational doctrine I knew you already
agreed with. In the sermon I’d make believing that doctrine an indication that
you’re a good, strong, well-informed Christian – unlike the backslidden
apostates in other denominations who don’t believe the doctrine. I’d use some
of my best stories, anecdotes, and analogies in order to involve your emotions
so you’d feel good and want me to come back and preach again. In that way you’d
approve of me as a denominational loyalist, you’d respect me as a “fearless”
preacher who’s not afraid to loudly and strongly preach a message you already
agreed with, you’d feel safe knowing I was a denominational flunky who was
unlikely to toss any curve balls, and you’d be titillated at the prospect of
having a preacher who knew how to tickle your ears.
As your preacher I’d make a big deal of Ga
2:16 and Ep 2:8,9 if I wanted you to believe in
salvation by faith alone (don’t look them up now; we’ll get to them in a
minute). But if I wanted you to believe in salvation by works, I’d harp on Ja 2:14,17,21,24,26. In both cases
I’d either ignore the contradicting verses or get you to ignore them with a bag
of tricks that includes clichés, ridicule, and misapplication of Scripture such
as, “They’re just trying to take away from what Christ did on the cross! But I wanna tell you what, brother, the Bible says ‘It is
finished’, I believe it, and that settles it! Amen?!”
The
problem is, because people don’t believe and apply everything in the Bible,
they never let the presence of verses that apparently contradict their doctrine
cause them to search the Scriptures for God’s truth that never contradicts any
verses. Both of the above sets of
verses are correct. That means both
doctrines are incorrect.
. . .
By the way, under the rubric of dispensationalism some
Christians today feign a doctrinal difference between Jews and Gentiles (called
in the Bible “dissembling”, “dissimulation”, and the “false
gospel” of Peter and others, which was covered on
D16-2). In other words, they think some “works” verses in the New Testament
don’t apply to us New Testament saints – they only apply to Jews.
Dispensationalists do this in an effort to explain this Biblical “conflict”
between what the New Testament says about faith and works in books like Ephesians,
Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation – and in order to preserve their belief in
justification by faith alone and eternal security. In other words, the false
gospel of Peter (dissembling, saying there is a doctrinal difference between
Jews and Gentiles) has survived to this day because Christians have failed to
grasp the difference between works and works of the law.
If you ever thought the
two kingdoms were the same and that they both have the same king, did you ever
wonder why the Bible sometimes says something very specific about only one of
the kingdoms? For example, the Bible says, “Not every one
that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the
KOH…” (Mt 7:21) only about the KOH – never about the
KOG. And it says, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see [or] enter
the KOG” (Jn 3:3,5) only
about the KOG – never about the KOH. This chapter will help you understand the
two kingdoms and the fact that each kingdom has its own different king.
CHAPTER EXCERPT:
The Kingdom of God (KOG)
and the Kingdom of Heaven (KOH) are not the same. (As we discuss this topic you
may wish to refer to the illustrations in chapter D4, The Gap.) If the
two kingdoms are not the same why does Scripture often say the same things
about both the KOG and the KOH? The answer is not a short one but it is
straightforward.
In the beginning God was
the only King. That meant there was only one kingdom, His kingdom, the KOG. All
of His spirit children were part of His kingdom. When Lucifer decided he was
equal to God he became another king (Is 14:13,14; Eze 28:2,6). That which he coveted, physical wealth, was all given to him, and he became king of the entire
physical creation, called the KOH.
God put humans on earth,
which is part of the Devil’s KOH. Christians therefore are part of both the KOG
(the new man) and the KOH (the old man). Dogs, who
have only the old man, are part of the KOH only and cannot see or enter the
KOG.
Because this earth and
this universe (the KOH) are leavened with sin, the KOH will always be
the Devil’s habitation because this KOH will become the lake of fire (I haven’t
put any Scripture together supporting this idea that the lake of fire will be
everything inside the great deep, but two references come to mind: Jona 2:2,3; Ps 69:15). That’s why God is now
preparing the new heavens and the new earth for us to inherit, which is the
new, future Kingdom of Heaven, which is also called Zion (KOH/Z). The KOH/Z is
the physical real estate that God promised to Abraham and his descendants
(saints) forever; the land of Canaan was just a type of the KOH/Z.
You and I were born in
the Devil’s physical KOH. We were then born again into God’s spiritual KOG. If
we are judged to be faithful, if we overcome the corrupting influence of this
KOH and focus on the KOG, we shall inherit the Promise, the KOH/Z. Always remember: The KOG is spiritual and there are two physical
KOHs – the present KOH and the future KOH/Z.
If your preacher does
not use the King James Bible you should ask him why he preaches that David
killed Goliath and why he has never preached that it was really Elhanan who
killed Goliath. If you have access to any Bible version other than the KJV and
the New King James Version compare 1 Sam 17:4,51 with 2 Sam 21:19 to see that
your preacher has just as much “manuscript authority” to loudly proclaim that
Elhanan killed Goliath as he does to talk about David. The ignorance about the
Bible version issue is undermining Christianity. Most Christians, in fact, do
not believe the inspired word of God – as defined by God in His Book – exists.
If it were not for the existence of the inerrant King James Bible there wouldn’t
be any Christians on God’s green earth who believe His church still has His
word. This chapter will teach you about the “original autographs”, the Hebrew
and Greek manuscripts, the Alexandrian text, the Textus
Receptus, about translating Bible versions, and it
will deal with Bible “errors” in general, “errors” in the KJV, and show you
multiple true errors in all of the modern versions. And it will explain why the
errors in the modern versions are the result of diligent and laudable efforts
of the translation committees. (Yes, that sentence is worded correctly.) You
will see that God really has done with His word exactly what He said He’d do.
CHAPTER EXCERPTS:
If you are already
knowledgeable you have been carefully analyzing my choice of words in order to
evaluate exactly what I mean when I say word of God, Bible, and Scripture.
I’ll make it easy for you: The Authorized 1611 King James Bible is without a
doubt the word of God. By that I mean God selected every word in it –
even the words in italics. The King James Bible is today the inspired-by-God,
infallible, inerrant, holy word of God with no contradictions or falsehoods of
any kind. No other Bible version or book or manuscript available today is the
word of God – they are all corrupt. That includes the New King James Version
and the Textus Receptus.
. . .
There is the right way –
the Scriptural way – to look for the true word of God, and there are wrong ways
(all wrong ways are based on philosophy) to choose a Bible version. First,
since without faith it is impossible to please Him (He 11:6), we must start by believing God exists and by believing
what He has said about His word. Second, God says we are to know them by
their fruits, as in a corrupt tree does not bring forth good fruit.
Therefore if we find a Bible version that has no errors or contradictions we
may safely discern that the Tree from which that pure fruit came wasn’t
the Apostle Paul, or Wescott and Hort,
or the King James translators – it was God. And if we find a Bible version that
has errors and inconsistencies in it, we may safely discern that that
leavened fruit did not come from God, that it came from man, and
that it should not be referred to as the word of God, the Bible, or
Scripture.
. . .
Many Christians assume,
because their preachers often confidently correct the word of God by quoting
“the original Greek”, that the original Greek
manuscripts exist. They don’t; it’s a myth. The original Greek, Hebrew, and
Aramaic/Chaldean manuscripts – also called “the originals”, also called “the
original autographs” – do not exist. And neither do any copies of the
originals. In fact, for well over the last one thousand five hundred years no
preacher, pewster, scholar, archeologist, or Bible
translator has ever laid eyes on the originals or direct copies of the
originals.
. . .
LAYMAN’S AIDS
The Bible version your preacher holds in
his hand is the result of the best scholarship money can buy. The ERRORists
have spent much time and energy becoming experts on the ERROR
manuscripts and the dead languages. They’ve brought all their considerable
expertise to bear in the production of their Hebrew Old Testament texts and
their Greek New Testament texts. Your preacher isn’t qualified to even touch
the hem of the ERRORists’
garments. That’s why he’ll never even dream of publishing his own dead-language
text.
The same is true of the Bible
translators: They have spent much time and energy becoming experts in their
field. They’ve forgotten more about the dead languages and the mechanics of
translating them than your preacher ever learned from his assignments in his
Dead Languages 101 course – even if he managed to get decent grades when he
turned in his homework to his teacher. That’s why no publisher would ever dream
of hiring your preacher to translate the next Bible version.
Your preacher went shopping one day and
bought a Bible version. The expert translators who put that Bible version
together made informed choices about which Hebrew and Greek texts to use. Then
they combed through many, many volumes of other works in order to refine both
the underlying texts and the actual English words that appear in each verse in
the Bible version. Your preacher liked their work enough as a consumer he paid
to have it.
But your preacher isn’t smart enough to
know how dumb he is. So he thinks his Dead Languages 101 homework assignments
made him a better-qualified expert on the dead languages and on translation
work than the men who devote their lives to that work. He wants to strut his stuff by correcting the experts. But because he
doesn’t really know his rear end from a hole in the ground he needs what I call
a layman’s aid.
Many kinds of layman’s aids are
published. All of them are designed to give some basic information. Some of the
more popular ones are Greek and Hebrew lexicons, concordances, and interlinear
Bibles. Some interlinear Bibles compare different Bible versions with each
other. Others compare an English version with Greek and Hebrew texts. These may
contain notes about which ERROR manuscript
fragment was used and about variations in other fragments. Concordances and interlinears tend to be popular among laymen such as
preachers and pewsters because they are quick and
easy to use.
If your preacher went to Bible school he
may have kept one of the books they made him buy. If that is too complicated
for him he probably bought an interlinear, a concordance, or some other basic,
easy-to-use dictionary.
Here’s what he does. If he gets his
sermons from some of the published sermons, they often tell him which words in
his Bible version to correct. These corrections are almost always because
denominational doctrine doesn’t like certain words in the version. If he
prepares his own sermons, he won’t correct his Bible version as often because he
doesn’t know what to correct. If he does correct the Bible in sermons of his
own making you can often tell because his correction is a stupid, pompous waste
of your time. For example, one preacher pointed out that the English word
“conscience” is formed by “con” (with) and “science” (knowledge). He then
pointed out that the Greek word for conscience is “suneidesis”,
which is formed by the Greek “sun” (with) and the Greek “eidesis”(knowledge)! Notice that the church is not edified by that
kind of drivel. But they’re not trying to help you; they’re trying to make you
think they’re smart. All they accomplish, however, is to prove they are in way
over their heads and have no business shepherding a flock.
But it’s when they correct their Bible
version (no matter what version it is) by saying, “This is an unfortunate
translation; the real Hebrew meaning for this word is…” that they reveal
themselves to be unbelievers and fools. Unbelievers because they don’t believe
the word of God exists, and fools because they think you’re going to accept
them as more qualified in the ERROR manuscripts
and in the nuances of translating than the paid professionals! The very fact
that your preacher thinks he can spend three and a half minutes in the
dictionary section of his concordance and come away knowing more than entire
translation committees is the height of folly, and it proves he is incompetent.
He does not understand language in general, dead languages in particular,
dictionaries, or why the Hebrew and Greek dictionary in the back of his
concordance often has a very broad selection of definitions from which to
choose. What, does he really think the translators of his Bible version weren’t
aware of those other choices? Can he get any more stupid?! Your preacher would
be more impressive if he quoted other Bible versions by saying something like,
“This ‘young animal’ in our version was translated as ‘baby goat’ in the Global
Standard Version. I respect the expertise of both translators but I think ‘baby
goat’ fits with the context and with our denominational doctrine better.” If he
limits himself to quoting other versions at least he’s quoting the work
of experts instead of “correcting” the work of experts.
You can’t take a layman’s aid and Dead
Languages 101 and out expert the experts. All you can do is make yourself look
like a pompous, bungling, foolish Bible rejecter. But that’s why layman’s aids
are published (in addition to making money); they are so you can make up your
own Bible version and be your own authority. You don’t have to accept the ERROR
manuscripts, the ERRORists,
the translators, the Bible versions, or the preachers as authorities; all you
have to do is what seems right to you…like everybody else does.
. . .
The above examples were
chosen because they represent the kinds of errors that are found in the ERROR manuscripts and in the modern Bible translations that come from
them. In a search for the true word of God the examples help us understand some
things:
· All modern versions of the Bible are products of
the Age of Reason and of democratic societies founded on Reason. They all used
the “higher textual criticism” methods that originated with Greek philosophy
and were adopted by antiquarians.
· All modern Bible versions are scientific because
they were produced with secular humanism and were therefore not influenced by
faith, by religion, or by anything else that is outlawed by the scientific
method.
· In general, all modern Bible versions are
neutral, unbiased, accurate translations of the corruption that leavens the
Hebrew and Greek ERROR manuscripts.
· The NKJV is not a faithful representation of the
leavened Textus Receptus
family of the ERROR manuscripts. Yes, in some places it does
reproduce the errors of the Textus Receptus, but in other places it inexplicably abandons the Textus Receptus reading and
reproduces the reading that appears in the Authorized Version. Therefore, Bible
believers despise it because it contains corruption, and scholars despise it
because as a translation it is an inconsistent compromise.
· The Authorized 1611 King James Bible is neither
a product of the Age of Reason nor a democratic society. It was produced under one of the last kings on earth whose life and reign
were heavily influenced by his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
· Every place corruption exists in the ERROR manuscripts the KJV deviates from that leaven and contains truth.
There is no manuscript support for the places where the KJV deviates from the Textus Receptus because the
wording in the KJV cannot be accounted for in any manuscript on earth and no
earthly source has been proven to be its source. It is precisely because the
KJV is not the result of the humanistic higher textual criticism demanded by
the scientific method, and because it is not a faithful translation of any
earthly manuscript that Enlightened Christian scholars disdainfully view the
King James Bible as an inferior translation.
· Because of the unquestioned, proven errors in
all families of the ERROR manuscripts, and because those same errors
exist in all modern Bible translations, there is not a person on earth who has
looked into any of this who believes any modern Bible version or old
manuscript is the word of God as defined by God. They aren’t all stupid; they
are correct.
· The only reason a Bible version
controversy exists is because of the AV1611. I say again: If the King James
Bible did not exist there would be no Bible version controversy. It is
the only manuscript on earth in which scholars have been unable to find
provable errors. It is the only manuscript on earth that any of God’s people
believe is the true word of God. The King James Bible is unique; there’s
nothing on earth like it that is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth.
· If the KJV did not exist all of today’s ignorant
and/or apostate preachers and pewsters would be
correct in saying the true word of God does not exist on earth today.
· Now you know why Bible believers don’t waste
their time with Greek and Hebrew lexicons: No dead language tome has any
authority over the living word of God. Use of the Greek and Hebrew is a sure
sign of ignorance and a possible sign of apostasy.
· The fact that all modern Bible versions, all of
the Greek and Hebrew editions of the ERROR manuscripts from which
they come, all layman’s aids used to correct the experts, and the fact that all
of the references used by the experts are copyrighted has no significance –
until you realize the Authorized Version came from God. The text of the King
James is neither owned nor controlled by man. Man’s copyright laws protect and
preserve the corruption of the other Bible versions, but for the last four
hundred years God alone has preserved the purity of the King James Bible
because it is His law. The King James is the only one that hasn’t been
preserved by man and his copyright laws.
· Anyone who uses a modern version does not fully
understand the issue of authority.
. . .
Now, I want to point
something out to you preachers who use modern versions. You were taught to say
stuff like this to your congregations: “It is not the small percentage of
errors and contradictions in the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts that we focus on.
We rejoice that God’s providential preservation has kept those errors to a
minimum, and we focus on the amazing degree of consistency and agreement among
the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. All of our major fundamental doctrines are
supported by the amazing consistency of the old manuscripts.” Don’t ever say
stuff like that again, brother, because it is not based on anything the
Bible says (!) and actually ignores everything the Bible does say
(!) about the word of God and its preservation and purity. You also don’t want
your congregation to catch you being a hypocrite. For example, if you ever say
David killed Goliath (2 Sa 21:19!), or that a profession of faith is
required before baptism (Ac 8:37!), or refer to Christ saying, “He that
is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her” (Jn 8:7!) you are hypocritically promoting
doctrines that are not supported by the “amazing consistency and
agreement” of the old manuscripts! Didn’t you ever stop to think?
Didn’t you ever read the footnotes or notice the missing verses in your
version? You did? So you’ve known all along you were teaching doctrines not
supported by the “oldest and most reliable manuscripts”! In that case, brother,
in spite of your sweet personality, your “family values”, and your wonderfully
inspiring and emotional sermons, you are nothing but a whited
sepulcher full of lip service. I’m warning you to flee the wrath to come by
repenting. Go get yourself the only Bible that supports the teachings mentioned
above, study it, learn from it what faith is, believe it, and incorporate it
into your life. Only when you’ve done that will you be qualified to shepherd
the house of God. Why did I bring up faith? I didn’t – you did when you spouted
that claptrap about being able to trust doctrines because the majority of
corrupt manuscripts agree on them! Who taught you that agreement among several
liars somehow creates reliability? Why would you want to base
your faith on known corruption? Your damning and embarrassing
inconsistencies are the result of your not having the solid rock of the word of
God as your foundation. And your inconsistencies are also proofs that either
you haven’t studied enough to be organized and consistent in your Christianity
(which would make you too immature to be preaching), or you have been a whited sepulcher without knowing it like Matt Seven. Some
earnest soul searching is in order, brother.
This chapter will show you that God gave Adam dominion over the
earth. But then Adam lost dominion by sinning. Noah, Abraham, and Moses never
had dominion. Only when Joshua led God’s people across the Jordan into the
Promised Land did God restore dominion – along with the Ark of the Covenant.
When God’s people went bad Jeremiah told them that God wanted them to go into
captivity to pagan Nebuchadnezzar and be ruled by him. They refused to believe
it and suffered badly for it. When they returned to rebuild the temple after 70
years of captivity, God restored neither their dominion nor the Ark of the
Covenant. Infected by Greek philosophy, God’s people began to believe that
rebellion against their pagan rulers was right and good. They were wrong. When
Christ showed up, His people were all excited because they thought He would
restore dominion, overthrow Roman rule, and restore the Kingdom of Israel (Lk 19:11; 24:21; Act 1:6). He repeatedly refused to do so (Jn 6:15; 18:36). They crucified Him and voted to release
the freedom-fighting insurrectionist, Barabbas. Modern Christianity has no idea
that the doctrine of dominion even exists. For that reason, this chapter
carefully and in detail goes through the Bible so you can learn about dominion
by hearing the word of God. This is another critical doctrine unknown to the
modern church. You must understand this doctrine before you vote in another
election.
CHAPTER
EXCERPTS:
This chapter covers an important
topic, dominion, about which many of you have heard nothing. Dominion is having
the right or authority to rule over something. As you learn about dominion
you’ll realize why the Lord Jesus Christ in Jn 18:36 boldly declared, “My kingdom is not of this world”, and why
He resolutely turned His people down when they tried to involve Him in
government and politics (Jn 6:15). But,
you may ask, did not the Lord establish His kingdom on earth in Ge 1:26,28 when
He gave Adam dominion by saying, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the
earth, and subdue it: and have dominion…over all the earth.”? And did not He
give His people dominion over the land of Canaan when Joshua crossed the Jordan
River? Yes, He did. But as your understanding of this topic becomes more
complete you’ll see why He told
Pilate His kingdom is not of this world, and why Christ the King doesn’t reestablish His kingdom and dominion on
earth until Re 11:15, and what
significance that has for Christians today. So, beginning with events on Eden
this will be a roughly-chronological history and analysis of dominion.
. .
.
Anyway,
Christians refused to believe Jeremiah’s message that God wanted them to
surrender dominion to Nebuchadnezzar and submit to his pagan Babylonian
government, so they mocked Jeremiah, accused him of treason, threw him in
prison, and murdered him in their hearts (Je 18:18; 20:1,2; 37:13-15; 38:4,5).
The
Bible preachers of the day came up with sermons that seemed godly to their
carnal Reason. They told Christians God wanted His people to have peace, that
God was on the side of the Christian military against the pagan Babylonian
army, and that God would save the nation of Israel. If you lived back then it
would be very, very easy to believe the Bible preachers. In fact, when you
compare that preaching with the preaching here in the British colonies during
the buildup to the American Revolution, it doesn’t look good for us. God
expected His people in Israel to know whether they should believe Jeremiah or
believe the preachers. In other words, God expected His people to know they
should allow themselves to be governed by pagans! That seems like it
would have been tough to discern. And yet we know God wouldn’t expect them to
do it unless they could discern it. By way of contrast, what Scriptural
decision did our American founding fathers have? They had to discern whether or
not they should start a rebellion against their own Christian government and
start a new government in which every man did that which was right in his own eyes. If you had a choice, would you rather stand
before God at Judgment and be guilty of wrongly resisting Nebuchadnezzar, a foreign
pagan king who attacked you, or be guilty of wrongly
resisting George III, your own Christian king who taxed
you? This helps us get a glimpse of the fact that we are worse today
than the carnal Christians who went into the Babylonian captivity.
. .
.
Now,
continuing with this business of God presiding over the dominionless
return of His people to Jerusalem, notice pagan Nebuchadnezzar was God’s servant
(Je 25:9; 27:6; 43:10). Also note that God was so pleased with
Nebuchadnezzar’s faithful service He gave him a reward (Ezek 29:17-20).
Did you catch the significance of the reward? It was Egypt – the world!
We Christians have no dominion. The unsaved have it. Now notice that King Cyrus
of Media-Persia, who defeated Babylon and was also served by Daniel the eunuch
(who understood the significance of Ro 13:1-7 and 1 Pe 2:13-20 even if our founding fathers didn’t), was
also God’s anointed servant (Is 44:28; 45:1) who had dominion
over the same territory (Ezr 1:1,2)
Satan has dominion over (Mt 4:8,9; Lk 4:5,6).
God had His pagan servants, the kings of the earth, keep dominion over both the
land of Israel and the saints when they were allowed to return to the Promised
Land. We are strangers and pilgrims sojourning on earth with no dominion.
The Bible teaches Christians it doesn’t matter who our rulers are –
pagan, Christian, good, or bad – they are God’s anointed ministers and are to
be submitted to and obeyed as if they were God. But shouldn’t bad rulers be
resisted in order to make a better world? No; the issue isn’t good or bad, the
issue is authority. Yeah, but since the Jews were specifically ordered by God
to submit to pagan Nebuchadnezzar, wasn’t Daniel the eunuch going too far by
submitting also to pagan King Cyrus? Daniel isn’t considered wise for nothing.
He knew God had taken dominion away from His people and given it to the Devil.
And he knew God’s people were once again strangers and pilgrims sojourning on
the earth. That’s why the real estate and dominion Daniel wanted had nothing to
do with anything on this planet (He 11:9,10,13-16).
Daniel showed by his example it doesn’t matter who our masters are on earth, we
are to serve them faithfully. The fact that God says Cyrus was His servant with
God-given dominion shows Daniel was right to submit to any government that came
along. (This concept was the basis for the doctrine later known as “the divine
right of kings.”) And Christians properly submitted as the years rolled by and
conquerors came and went. But not all Christians were as wise or as humble as
Daniel, and the carnal mind wouldn’t go away.
Alexander
the Great showed up and conquered Media-Persia. When he died, four of his
generals divided his empire among them. One of these was the Enlightened Greek
general, Ptolemy, who began the Ptolemaic empire, which was centered in Egypt.
Another of these Enlightened generals was Seleucus. He started the Seleucid Empire, which was
centered in Babylon and included Syria. Judah was caught right in the middle
where God could give His people a good lesson on submission to whatever ruler
had dominion that week. The Seleucids were more aggressive than were the Ptolemaics in pushing philosophy, and that made the Jews
prefer to be under Ptolemaic dominion. Alas, Antiochus IV of the Seleucid
Empire gained hegemony over Judah. He hated the Jew’s religion and burned
Bibles, prohibited its reading, outlawed the sabbath
and circumcision, ended the celebration of feasts, and started Greek centers
for the development of the mind and body – called gymnasiums. Greek athletics
were popular among the Jews. Unfortunately, when Antiochus outlawed circumcision,
Jews who were secretly loyal to the Bible had to drop out of athletics because,
as was the custom then, sports were participated in while naked.
There
were three types of Christians living in Judah at the time. The first type
agreed with Daniel the eunuch: If pagan rules were going to cause you to offend
God, you were to respectfully decline to obey the authorities over you and
peacefully allow them to burn you alive or throw you to the lions. These
Daniel-like Christians were few in number.
The
second type was the Jason crowd. Jason was a high priest who believed in “going
along and getting along” by embracing the Enlightened ways of the Greeks. There
were lots of people in this group, but many were in it only because they didn’t
want to suffer affliction with the people of God (He 11:24-28).
The
third group consisted of the Maccabee rebels. This
group was at first small because most Christians still accepted the Bible
doctrine that rebellion against authority is as the sin of witchcraft. But this
third group would grow in popularity in direct proportion to the amount of
carnal Reason in the church. It is interesting to note the irony in how the Maccabees became champions of a Bible-based society and
enemies of an Enlightened society – they became Enlightened. They accepted just
enough anti-Bible Reason to “justify” some witchcraft (rebellion) – as
long as it was to get rid of pagan government. They began to rebel against
their government with acts of theft, sabotage, and murder. All of that appealed
to Christians, but it was Xmas that finally convinced most Christians to
actually support the Maccabees.
It
was the winter of 167 B.C. Antiochus IV
entered the Jewish Temple on the sacred pagan holy day of December 25 and
dedicated it to the Greek god of the Olympic games,
Zeus. (Interestingly enough, that Temple would later be rebuilt and enlarged by
King Herod – who was president of the Olympic games.)
Anyway, there was no way God’s people were going to allow any Bible-rejecting
pagan to associate Xmas with the true God of the Bible. They were galvanized
into action.
The
leader of the rebellion was a thug named Mattathias Hasmoneas. One day he slugged another Christian who was
about to offer a pagan sacrifice, and then he murdered the government official
who was presiding over the celebration. Mattathias
and his five sons fled to the hills and lived as outlaws. They organized and
led a series of hugely popular – and to some degree successful – military
uprisings against the ungodly government. These military campaigns became known
in history as the Jewish Wars for Independence. The big hero of these wars was Mattathias’ son, Judas. After three years Judas recaptured
Jerusalem and rededicated the Temple. God’s joyous people, with no authority
from God, invented Hanukkah to celebrate the occasion, and gave this
young freedom fighter the nickname, Maccabee,
which means the Hammer. Mattathias’ family
continued acts of terrorism, theft, murder, sedition, and guerrilla warfare for
generations. Eventually the entire family was approvingly called the Maccabees as more and more of God’s people incorporated
rebellion into their thinking. They now considered rebellion to be a legitimate
alternative whenever it seemed right in their own eyes. However, many
Christians only supported the Maccabees and accepted
rebellion because they didn’t want to die: The Maccabees
and their armies were also fighting a holy war against any of their fellow Jews
who were not actively supporting the rebels. Those Jews who were neutral and
those who were pro government were murdered. The Daniel-like Christians and the
Jason group became distinct minorities.
The
Roman Empire was a rising power at this time, and Judas the Maccabee,
who read (and ignored) the same 2 Ch 16:1-10 you and I have, sent a
delegation to Rome to work out an alliance with the Romans to defeat the
Seleucids. This got Rome interested in the region, which it eventually made a
part of its empire.
When
Judas died in battle, his brother took over and established a (short-lived) treaty
with the Seleucids, who rewarded him by appointing him High Priest of
Jerusalem. The real priests were mad that they’d been out-maneuvered in a
political power play. They said the sons of Mattathias
Hasmoneas were not legitimate priests because only the
Levite sons of Aaron could be priests. But the Hasmonean
boys owned the hearts and minds of the pewsters
because the Maccabees were the populist judges who
were delivering Israel from pagan oppression. (In fact, Judas the Hammer said
God wanted him to be another Gideon.) So these Maccabees
became the Hasmonean line of priests and were
detested by the Aaronic line of priests. This was the
beginning of denominations within Christianity.
The
Maccabees brought Samaria (north of Judah) and Idumea (south of Judah) under their control. And they
forced the pagan Idumeans (formerly called Edomites) to convert to Judaism. (That’s why King Herod of
Christ’s time was one of God’s people.)
Years
later when Judah was under the dominion of the Roman Empire, the political
fortunes of the Maccabees took a turn for the worse.
The Maccabees fell from political favor and Herod was
appointed king. Now that Herod was the one smoking cigars with those in Rome
instead of the Maccabees, the Maccabees
found their old spirit of rebellion against foreign domination rekindling!
Herod was no longer considered a fellow believer doing the best he could under
difficult circumstances; he was a stinking Edomite
who was collaborating with pagan Rome! He was a traitor! Rise up! Rise up! And
therefore another wave of “godly piety” swept the synagogues, and rebellion was
again a popular subject in sermons. Government property was once again stolen,
vandalized, and destroyed. Christians who worked for the government, such as
tax collectors, were despised, beaten, and sometimes murdered along with Roman
officials. Patriotic fervor was fanned by religious zeal as Enlightened Jews
sprang up everywhere in support of the Maccabees. The
Hammer was back! At least in the hearts and minds of
carnal Christians.
King
Herod wasn’t about to shirk his duty. And all of this
insurrection made Herod look bad – like a man who couldn’t rule well his
own kingdom. But Herod was in fact as capable a ruler as he was decisive and
ruthless. The insurgents, though popular with the people, no longer had the
military genius and organizational skills of Judas the Hammer, so they were
unable to effectively contend with government forces. Herod captured the last
of the Maccabees and executed them.
God’s
people, however, no longer needed the Maccabees to
fan their hatred of their pagan government, they just needed someone who was
willing to step up and be their deliverer, their judge. For that reason any
thief or murderer who had decent organizational skills and the cunning to direct
his efforts mainly at governmental targets had at least some measure of popular
support. After all, Judas the Hammer was popular even though he murdered many
of his fellow Christians – those who lacked the degree of patriotism he thought
necessary. So King Herod constantly had to deal with insurrectionists who were
part thug and part populist hero. But one day the patriotic fervor turned to
religious zeal/Messianic fever. (In fact, as we shall see, most of the
Messianic fervor was due to the fact that most Christians thought the Messiah
would be another Hammer who would rebel against pagan rule and restore dominion
to Israel.)
It
happened unexpectedly, and it happened with a flair that got everybody’s
attention.
A
large convoy of wealthy Christian foreigners arrived in Jerusalem from the
east. These were obviously men of means; they had money, power, and influence.
The way they spoke, the way they dressed, the way they handled themselves, all
indicated they were to be taken seriously and treated with deferential respect.
They weren’t commoners who typically go unnoticed when they drift into town (as
was the case a short time later when Joseph took his wife and his small child
to Egypt). They said they had spoken with a gentleman (they may actually have
said angel) who approached them in their homeland in the east. This
angel told them the Christ, the King of the Jews, had been born, and they were
to go to Jerusalem, find Him, and pay their respects. “So”, they asked the
inhabitants of Jerusalem, “where is our king?” (If we accept that God chose the
wise men because they were good Christians, we might surmise they were very
disappointed with the kind of Christians they found in Israel. Also, while
we’re speculating, could it be that the wise men were descendents of some of
Jonah’s disciples; that one of the reasons God sent Jonah to Ninevah (Jona 3:2), which
was east of the Tigris and Euphrates and northeast of Jerusalem, was to prepare
for the birth of His Son?) All of Jerusalem was buzzing with their arrival and
their mission (Mt 2:3), and the men were directed to King Herod, who,
intrigued and suspicious, granted them an audience immediately.
Herod
was no fool, and he, too, was impressed with the depth and substance of these
men. He shrewdly noticed they mentioned nothing about politics and spoke only
of their common Bible faith. They said they believed the angel they saw was in
fact a real and genuine messenger from their Messiah. They exercised all the
proper courtesies required when in the presence of a sovereign – but were not
cowed or fawning. Powerful men indeed.
Herod
said nothing that would betray his increasing fear that these men might be part
of a well-financed international conspiracy of patriotic Christian Maccabites bent on establishing Israel’s independence – and
getting rid of him. He said all the right “Christian” things and asked all the
right questions. The chief priests had told Herod the Bible said the Messiah
would be born in Bethlehem. When he told that to his visitors they replied that
the Messiah’s messenger had specifically ordered them to go to Jerusalem. Herod
advised them to inquire in Bethlehem and let him know what they found, so the
men left.
Meanwhile,
patriotic Christians were dusting off their Bibles and again going over all the
verses that say the Christ would become Judge of Israel, deliver them from
foreign oppression, and reestablish the kingdom. All this activity had Herod
and his advisors worried about a large-scale, organized, well-financed
uprising. But Herod couldn’t quite bring himself to believe the gentlemen were
anything but sincere, innocent Christians – until they failed to return.
When
Herod got the news that these men and their convoy left Bethlehem and went
straight back to the east, he was furious. How could he have been so blind!
They’d played him for a fool! He had them in his grasp and had let them go! Now
he knew it was a conspiracy, so he ordered his soldiers to Bethlehem to
nip this latest rebellion in the bud.
This chapter shows why
Caucasians are not descendants of the lost ten tribes of Israel – in spite of
some interesting tidbits from history that might suggest otherwise. It explains
why racial purity is a false issue. And it explains why the intentions of
Christians of all groups and denominations to use peaceful politics and/or
military action to establish Christian governments based on the Bible in the
U.S. or in any other country are doctrinally wrong. And it shows that the Bible
teaches us that any rebellion on our part – even against evil rulers – is as
the sin of witchcraft.
CHAPTER EXCERPTS:
This chapter does not just deal with the
lost ten tribes. The topic of the ten tribes is not even the most important
subject in this chapter. Witchcraft is. But the ten tribes
topic does help to establish the way many Christians today look at things.
Until we get back to the Bible our perspective will continue to be carnal. And as we approach the end times we’re going to have
to subdue the carnal mind and dump traditional Christian doctrines or we will
be casualties, not victors, in the war.
Some Christian groups teach as dogma the
theory of the “Lost Ten Tribes of Israel.” The doctrines and practices of these
groups often differ greatly because there is nothing definite in the Bible or
in history about the lost ten tribes to unify their theories. But because much
of the ten tribe stuff is very interesting, and because this is a good context
in which to discuss a growing concern of mine, I’ll briefly review the ten tribes theory, the doctrines that have developed from it,
and my concerns for the future. Let’s begin.
. . .
Now
you know what your New Testament Christian calling
is, and it is consistent with not having dominion: Submit and suffer: If
your rulers are bad, submit, obey, and suffer. If you do obediently submit and
they wrongfully violate your “rights” by throwing you into prison like Joseph
and Jeremiah, or by giving you the death penalty like Daniel, Christ, and John
the Baptist, submit. This is but another illustration that the issue in the
Bible isn’t right and wrong, the issue is submission to authority. That’s why
both Ro 13 and 1 Pe 2 say obedient submission to
authority is “good” and resistance to authority is “evil.”
. . .
Then
ask yourself why your favorite preacher never taught you to avoid the
rebellious insolence and brazen willfulness of the horrific sin of clamoring
(Ep 4:31). Any English dictionary will
show that clamoring includes most forms of democratic dissent, disapproval, protest,
picketing, striking, protest marching, etc. The Bible says our earthly
Christian walk is supposed to demonstrate that we can submit to and please any
hard masters that have authority over us – even the froward
ones.
. . .
Now
we leave the realm of Bible study and enter the realm of conjecture. Because
the Bible says history repeats itself, I fear that just as the church has been
its own worst enemy in the past, it will be its own worst enemy in the end
times. Remember, the context in which we must consider ourselves is that of having
no dominion. Does anything in our past seem to apply today? Very
much so.
The
Maccabees were rebels and outlaws who became
religious and patriotic heroes. They wanted self-rule for God’s people. The
government tried to stop them. The rebellion went on for a long time. When Christ
showed up, Christians realized they didn’t like His politics and voted for
Barabbas. Our lust for self-rule, rebellion, and democracy has done nothing but
grow stronger since then. Not only is rebellion justified as “Christian”, but
democracy itself is taught as a “Christian” form of government supposedly outlined
in the Bible. And Christians now actually think their political and social
clamoring is pleasing to God.
What
if we don’t repent and God allows His pagan servants in our secular government
to do things we really hate. And then all these Christian groups who think we
should start following the example of “heroes” like the Maccabees
begin to destroy government property. Frustrated Christians rally to their
cause. The government, like Herod, cracks down with the military. The
government outlaws Christian groups who are in rebellion, and mass arrests are
made in an attempt to restore order to society. Eventually
Christians who follow Christ’s example and are properly aloof from political
involvement while being obediently submissive, are caught in the middle.
They are beaten and killed by Christian patriots (such as the Sons of Liberty
and the Maccabees) and are reported to the government
as enemies of the state like Christ and Jeremiah were.
In
other words, it is possible we’ll bring much tribulation upon ourselves because
we don’t know what our New Testament Christian calling is.
According
to the last book in the Bible things are going to get pretty weird around the
time of the Second Coming. And part of our problem may be our false notions
about Christ and His doctrines. What if the true Christ shows up with darker
hair, eyes, and skin than is depicted in today’s popular portraits that, to me,
look like Buffalo Bill Cody? With His physical lineage He may not be as white
as we think – or hope. And on top of that, this particular Christ with His
darkish Middle Eastern complexion also has the offensive Middle Eastern belief
that women should be shamefaced servants and governments should be patriarchies
and monarchies. And to top it all off, while claiming to be Jesus Christ, He
begins to condemn today’s Christianity as Satanically corrupted and filled with
the doctrines of devils!
We
may also have to use some serious Scriptural discernment if some very
impressive false Christs come along. Satan has been
smart enough to do a pretty good job of fooling us so far, and I see no reason
to believe he can’t come up with a false Christ who will very nicely fit our Enlightened expectations and even delightfully exceed them.
Supporters of the true Christ will be shockingly few in number if the Bible is
correct.
I
don’t know what will happen in those days. But it’s going to be bad. It’s going
to be very bad because history is going to repeat itself.
Perceptive and informed Christians who have carefully read these
chapter summaries may have already discerned what the damnable heresy mentioned
in the New Testament is. The rest of you will have no doubt about it when you
study this chapter.
CHAPTER
EXCERPTS:
When
Christ refused Satan’s offer in Mt 4:8-10 for Him to rule the world, He could have said, “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou worship.” But He didn’t. He used both worship
and serve in a way and context that let us know worship and serve
are synonyms. So, we want to know what Christ knew. We want to know how He’d
have been serving and worshipping the Devil if He had agreed to rule all the
kingdoms on earth.
First,
how would Christ have ruled? He would have been a dictator, He would have ruled
well, and He would have established societal, familial, and governmental
structures that were in accordance with the Bible. There is no question about
that. But what did Christ know that made Him refuse to replace ungodly
world government with His Biblical rule? Satan also knew Christ would
have established worldwide Scriptural societies. What did Satan know that made
him think that would be good for his cause? Why did Satan think Christ’s
Biblical rule would help the gates of hell prevail over the church? You don’t
think Satan had a good idea, do you? You don’t think Christ blew a good
opportunity, do you? Then what has modern Christianity failed to learn from
this lesson in the Bible? We have failed to learn about authority.
Had Christ ruled the world all of His good Biblical
works would have glorified Satan because they would have been worshipping and
serving the Devil. Why? Because of authority. Christ
had a choice. Had He accepted authority from Satan, He would have been under
Satan’s authority. That means He would have been working for Satan – serving
him. Why? Because the head gets all the credit for everything.
The captain is responsible for everything in his dominion – because he is the
one and only supreme authority. If Christ’s authority to rule had come from
Satan, all of Christ’s good works would have glorified Satan. And all the good
and bad angels, and all the people on earth would have seen living proof that
the world works pretty well when Satan is in charge. The Lord’s
prayer would have become Satan’s prayer: “For thine
is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory.” All because of authority and the
way it works.
This principle also appears in 1 Co 11:3-5. A
woman’s head is her husband, the man’s head is Christ, and Christ’s head is
God. A perfect chain of command. Now look at what
happens when the man does something; it reflects on Christ because Christ is
the authority over him. The verses teach, for example, that when a woman does good or bad, it reflects on her husband, which reflects on
Christ, which reflects on God. That’s what 1 Co 6:15-17 is all about.
Godly authority is structured like a body. The various members of the body have
different functions. Some are apostles, some are
prophets, teachers, pastors, husbands, wives, and children. We shouldn’t despise
each other up and down the chain of authority because we all reflect on God.
When King Herod ordered a Christian soldier to Bethlehem to murder babies and
children, Herod reflected on his master. Since Herod was a Christian, was his
master God? No, because we have two bodies. The old man belongs to the
Kingdom of Heaven; the new man belongs to the Kingdom of God. Which master we
serve determines whose servants we are. Herod made a
carnal decision to kill the babies; he was serving Satan. The Christian soldier,
however, who was under Herod’s authority was not supposed to consider right or
wrong; his job was to obey. If he followed the Bible, he obeyed Herod and went
and slaughtered the babies. That reflected well on God and He was pleased. It
also reflected well on Herod, by the way, because Herod was the soldier’s head.
But Herod’s carnal decision did not reflect poorly on the soldier, because the
soldier wasn’t up Herod’s chain of command.
The saints in Abraham’s bosom were Satan’s wives.
Christ had not died yet on the cross to free them from that bondage, which
meant legally they were not yet His espoused wives. Therefore, because
of authority, everything those wives did during their lives, Scriptural
and unscriptural, reflected on Satan, their husband, head, and authority. In
that situation when the good saints died they ordinarily would have been
condemned to the fires of hell. But because they had no choice or control over
the situation and were “victims of circumstances”, when they died God, as King of
kings, exercised His prerogative and raised His royal scepter and put them in
Abe’s bosom (a city of refuge) until the death of their High Priest on the
cross according to Nu 35:25,28. You and I,
after the cross, are legally Christ’s espoused wives; therefore our
Christian walk does legally demonstrate which husband we prefer. That’s why
nobody goes to Abe’s bosom anymore. But because we are all still subject to the
arbitrary scepter of grace, even though formal Judgment doesn’t take place
until later, when we die we go either to hell or to the Third Heaven –
depending on what God does with His scepter.
Let me stress the point about Abe’s bosom. The saint’s
were there because they could not go to Heaven and their works could not be
applied to Christ as long as they were only Satan’s brides because
that put them under his exclusive authority. Had Satan understood all
this stuff he would not have made the tactical blunder of crucifying Christ (1
Co 2:8). The closest, so far,
that Satan has come to winning the war was at the First Coming. Had he not
crucified Christ, there is no way the church could win because legally there
would have been no brides of Christ who could legally run the race for Him. If
Satan had not crucified Christ he would be the victor today and would no longer
be concerned about the lake of fire. That’s why Old Testament prophets were
kept in the dark about certain things, why many New Testament doctrines were
veiled in the Old Testament, and why Christ was so careful to be obscure with
much of what He said: He is a General fighting a war against overwhelming odds.
(Those overwhelming odds are why Satan agreed to the rules of war.) Therefore
He tried to keep General Satan fooled over thousands of years. That meant only
letting His soldiers of the cross know selected unclassified information that
wouldn’t reveal His strategy to Satan. This means you and I, as loyal soldiers,
need to realize why Christ needs us to live and die by revelation,
not Reason. Our marching orders are to die daily. Our New Testament
Christian calling is to humbly and obediently submit to all authority over us (1
Pe 2:21).
. .
.
Avoiding this damnable heresy by learning to be
respectfully submissive to all authorities begins with proper parenting (Pv 22:6). To this end, parents shouldn’t spare the physical rod of correction
(Pv 13:24; 19:18; 22:15; 23:13,14; 29:15,17). (In the OT if a child proved to be
stubbornly disobedient, his parents were to have him executed as an example to
the rest of society (Dt 21:18-21).
Because Lucifer, the original disobedient rebel, was sentenced to death in the
lake of fire, and because rebellion is witchcraft, and stubbornness is iniquity
and idolatry (1 Sa
15:23; Ex 22:18), the penalty for disobedience is death.) Ep 4:31 and Ro 1:29-31 list sins the modern church ignores because they are
contrary to the democratic principles of the Age of Reason. You’ll notice these
sins offend the Bible doctrine of submissive obedience to authority. Covetousness: To want to have something, such as: 1) To want
the possessions or prerogatives of others to be yours. 2) To want your will,
way, or opinion to prevail over others. (Covetousness is a foundational
sin because all other sins are based on or derived from it. That’s why a
synonym for covetousness is,
according to Co 3:5, idolatry.) Clamor: To vehemently express dissatisfaction; to
argue for change; to complain. Envy:
Discontent with another’s position,
possessions, prerogatives, or accomplishments; and to want them to be yours. Debate:
To argue, dispute, or contend with. Maliciousness and malignity: These both involve forms of aggression or opposition
rather than submission. Whisperers and backbiters: Those who secretly
complain about, plot against, or slander. Despiteful: Without respect
for; contemptuous. Disobedient to
parents: The specific inclusion of this sin makes it clear that
disobedience by children and the other sins in these verses are not “amusing
antics of childhood” as commonly believed today – they are sins against authority that must not be tolerated. Implacable: Stubbornly unyielding, unrelenting. By not teaching about these
sins, preachers are defrauding the church.
This scary chapter deals
with Ex 15:26 and Jam 5:14 in the most Biblical and comprehensive treatment of
this topic I have ever seen or heard about. Gird your loins and be sure to have
your Bible when you study this chapter.
CHAPTER EXCERPTS:
Ex 15:26 And
said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, and
wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his
commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon
thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the LORD that healeth thee.
Ja 5:14 Is any
sick among you? let him call for the elders of the
church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the
Lord:
When my wife and I were young Christians an elderly missionary and his
wife who were staunch King James Bible advocates took us to a nearby church.
The church supported him and he wanted us to hear him preach. And, of course,
with two new faces showing up, everybody wanted to meet us, find out if we were
saved, if we were looking for a good church, etc. We enjoyed speaking with an
elderly couple who were members of the church. They knew a lot of Bible and
were delighted to find a couple who shared their interest in the Scriptures and
who were so full of questions. When the service was over they invited the four
of us to their home for some chow.
The
elderly church members soon shoved the dishes aside so we could break God’s
Bread. The issue we were discussing was Christians going to medical science for
their health versus going to the Lord. My wife and I’d never heard anything
about it before and were still too naďve to know the “proper” response to scary
topics was to get real quiet and act as if they’d just said something
embarrassingly offensive, thank them for the chow, and leave. We still thought
Christians were supposed to pull out their Bibles and humbly engage in
Swordplay in order to help each other more perfectly know God’s will. Anyway,
the host couple would read verses like the two at the top of the page, to which
the missionary would respond by protesting that the verses did not mean what
they said, produce a Greek and Hebrew dictionary for laymen, and read potential
meanings for some of the words. Frustrated and embarrassed when it became
evident he was going to have to overthrow a number of verses in the Bible, he
retreated with red face into a little shell right there at the dinner table and
spent the remainder of the discussion silently and futilely flipping back and
forth in his layman’s aid seeking comfort and reassurance. He was apparently
unable to refute the word of God (as was I when I later studied the doctrine on
my own) because he never spoke up again. In addition to learning something
about the health issue it was interesting for me to observe his fear, his
cowardly behavior, his immaturity, and his lack of an open interest in the
things of the Lord – characteristics I thought were the opposite of those that
Christians were supposed to have and demonstrate. I will give the missionary
credit for one thing: he never resorted to the ungodly use of carnal ridicule
and stupid clichés so often used by Christians as last-ditch defenses when
losing a serious discussion about doctrine.
The
next day the missionary was fielding questions from me about various doctrines
when we came to one I had done some studying on and which I knew he and his
denomination disagreed with. I’d point out a verse in the Bible and he’d
respond by picking one of the definitions in his Hebrew/Greek lexicon that
changed the meaning of the verse. So I’d turn to another verse that supported
my position. He’d respond by opening a huge commentary by an author approved by
his denomination and read a section in which the author by fiat decreed the
verse to be incorrect. This pattern went on until it occurred to me to ask him
a question about the source of his belief and about the validity of his method
of argument: “Brother, why is it that every time I turn to something God says
in His Book, you attack it by turning to something man says in some other
book?” (That is not something you say to a supposed King Jameser.) He ignored my question, gathered his wife, packed
their suitcases and left my house. I never saw him again and he never answered
my question. He was apparently offended because he thought I had insulted him.
I thought he had attacked the authority, validity, and existence of the word of
God and was, by his example, unthinkingly attempting to corrupt a young
Christian. His indignation was personal; mine was righteous. I say this only
for your edification.
The two verses at the beginning of the chapter sum up God’s health care
plan for His people and show His plan has always been the same in both
Testaments. You will see that, just as with the rest of God’s words, I take
these words literally and seriously. I believe Christians will not get sick unless
God wants us to. And when we do get sick – even unto death – we
should not run to the doctor for healing while giving lip service to God; we
should let God heal or kill us while we ignore the doctor. But before we begin
this topic I want to put it into perspective.
. . .
You will likely find
this to be the most fearful chapter in this book. It is not the most difficult
to understand and it is not the most important issue in this book. But because
it is a body blow rather than the head jabs common to the rest of the book,
this subject will help reveal to you where your throne is, that is, where
you live. We are married to the Lord for better or for worse and, from an
Enlightened viewpoint, you are about to learn something about our Husband that
makes our marriage take a turn for the worse. You are going to learn that
Scriptures that define our calling like 1 Pe
2:19-21; 4:12-19; and 1 Jn 3:16 do not
just apply to governmental and religious persecution; they also apply to verses
like Job 1:8; 2:3.
. . .
Unless our actions
originate on a cerebral level, unless we live and walk with discernment, we
cannot please God (Ro 8:7,8) and cannot know
the things of God (1 Co 2:12-16). Without discernment we shall die in
the lake of fire (Ro 8:6; Mt 16:24-26). That’s why other issues in this
book are more important than the issue in this chapter.
But this chapter is
important as an indicator of your level of maturity. If you dwell in the
cerebral zone of discernment, you’ll be able to handle this topic without
uncontrollable fear because this topic does not threaten your spirit life.
However, if you have not packed up and moved into the temple of the Holy Ghost
and still live in the old man, the flesh, this topic is a threat to the very
life God has told you to disregard as unimportant. If you have a problem ruling
well your old man household from the conceptual realm of the discerning new
man, this chapter will reveal that problem. You will then on a daily basis be
able to humbly discuss the applicable Scripture and this topic with the Lord
and ask Him to help you work on your level of faith, belief, courage,
commitment, strength, and discipline.
. . .
One day as a teenager I disrespectfully wise-assed
my mother.
My growth had made me physically stronger than she, and that gave me the
confidence to resist her will. When I saw her slap coming I easily ducked it;
she got nothing but air and looked clumsy as her continuing swing pulled her
off balance. As I smugly straightened up, full of pride and satisfaction, my
mother recovered her balance along with the realization that I’d crossed the line
from the typical youthful inability to control a glib mouth (Ja 3:8-10) to actual
rebellion against authority. She pointed her finger and looked up into my face
and said, “Young man, you’ve done wrong and you deserve to be disciplined: You
stand up and take your punishment like a man!” My pride and satisfaction melted
into shame and regret as my love for my mother made me realize the truth of
what she said, as well as the fact that I was starting down a road I didn’t
want to be on. Too young to realize a spontaneous apology was appropriate, I
silently stood at attention while my mother slapped me.
That
episode was lost in the busy clutter of life until years later when my heavenly
Father brought it to my attention. I realized that starting with that slap, and
because my physical capabilities gave me an option, any punishment I received
from my mother from that day forward was approved by me. I approved or
agreed not because I liked it and not because my mother was always right, but
because it was her job to train me up, and my job to
submit to her will. My parents and I walked together as I matured because we
agreed they had the prerogative to inflict pain on me, and I had the duty to
humbly submit to their will. That’s just the way God set things up.
And as sons and daughters of God our
relationship with Him works the same way: It is voluntary. The Lord has
shouldered the responsibility of a parent; it is His job to train us up in the
way we should go, and He is never remiss in His duty because He is a Faithful
and Good Shepherd. It is our job to submit to His will. Notice the word Therefore
in Dt 8:5,6
teaches us that one of the reasons we are to obey God is fear of His
punishment. See also He 12:5-11, which talks about the importance of acknowledging and accepting
punishment from God. Accepting His punishment is part of our “subjection” to
His authority (v.9). His punishment is for our “profit” (v.10), but only if
after submitting ourselves to His punishment we are then “exercised”,
motivated, changed, and guided by that chastening (v.11). See also Ps 119:75
and Jn 18:11.
We are God’s witnesses when we obediently submit to His will. If we please Him, Le
26:3-13 will happen. But if we are not obedient, Le 26:14-39 will
happen. These show that God uses sickness as punishment. Therefore, when bad
things happen to us we need to discern if they are tests, guides, or
punishments. If they are punishments we must do Le 26:40,41.
If we do not voluntarily “accept the punishment of our iniquity” (Le
26:41b), we’ll be rebelliously ducking our Father’s corrective slap. In other
words, we have a choice as to whether we accept God’s punishment or fight
against it. Now turn to the sentence in bold print on page H10-11 and apply
King James’ statement to this topic. Our Christian calling and duty is to
humbly submit to His correction and guidance in order that the flesh might be
defeated and the war won. Just as it was Christ’s duty to die, it is our duty
to die. We have wrongly ignored the physical dying part of that duty by always
discussing the part about dying daily to self. For example, when was the last
time your preacher or Bible study group even brought up this topic, let alone
taught a lesson on it? Hmm? Fear of physical death is
a great unmotivator, making this one of the
least-viewed chapters at TheSwordbearer.org. But don’t worry; even the Lord’s
disciples were at first afraid to address this topic.
Earlier I said it was not important for
us to know all the right answers and that our real responsibility is to learn things from
God and then incorporate them into our lives. That requires the maturity
necessary to know the Lord, accept His guidance and correction, and put His
will into action in our lives. The Bible commands us to be perfect, and
I believe those three things – knowing God, accepting His will, and doing His
will – are essentially what perfection is. Perfection includes the ability to
repent. Repentance requires knowing we have been contrary to God’s will and
then humbly conforming to His will. David was perfect (1 Ki
15:3). The fact that he committed quite a few sins just makes him like the
rest of us. Being perfect doesn’t mean never sinning. Being perfect from God’s
perspective means incorporating and identifying with every verse David wrote in
Ps 119. Perfection is more a matter of character, a matter of the heart,
a matter of who we are. God is looking for people who love and serve Him
in a personal way like David. He is not looking for people like the Pharisees
who ignore Him by focusing their attention on keeping the law. David’s old man
tried to run from God by sinning, but David’s new man always fought back,
regained control, and returned to the Lord. The carnal sides of the Pharisees
tried to ignore God by hiding behind His laws, and their new men never loved
the Lord enough to miss Him and come out from hiding.
. . .
If you answered one of the last two
questions with a yes I have no more problem with that than I would if my
son were too young to mow the lawn or drive a car. Christianity is a growth
process. It is urgent that we mature because there’s a war going on and
we are needed, but our Family has people of all ages and levels of maturity in
it and we are here to help each other. If you or loved ones have health
problems, this chapter has been very difficult. In that case you might have to
deliberately and wisely back away from this topic until you are ready to
examine it Scripturally. Just be honest with the Lord
and say something like, “Lord, I can’t even begin to deal with this
issue from the Scriptures; I instantly get defensive and attack the very idea
that we should rely only on You for our health. Yes,
Sir, I admit I’m terribly afraid to even take an honest, discerning look
at the issue. And even if it turns out that medical science is OK, I
still have to admit to You this may be something in
life that if You ever did ask me to do, I might not love You enough to
do it – and that lack of faith upsets and frightens me more than the medical
issue.” In the meantime, spend your time concentrating on other ways you can
serve God. The Lord will understand and He will help you grow. Remember, our
objective is not losing our dependence on medical science; our objective
is growing closer to the Lord and glorifying Him in accordance with His word.
We are trying to develop the kind of intimate, trusting relationship with a
very real God that we’ll have for all of eternity. So if you aren’t ready for
this issue, don’t push it.
This chapter uses encounters with proselytizing
Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses to make some points about effectively using the
Bible when in doctrinal discussions with others.
CHAPTER EXCERPT:
“Now, as to the validity or invalidity of the
Mormon religion itself. Your Book of Mormon claims to be another
testament of Jesus Christ. You probably have written and made official your
own last will and testament. It issues instructions to your family and gives
your stuff to them. But even though you’ve already written that testament your
family cannot use it to get your stuff because it is not valid until you die
to put it into effect. That is straight out of He 9:16,17. Now, I
know Jesus Christ died two thousand years ago in order to make valid His New
Testament, but when has He died since He gave “another” of His testaments to
Joseph Smith in order to make the BOM valid? Doesn’t the Bible make it clear
that the resurrected Christ will never die again (Re 1:18)?” At this
point his stunned silence was beginning to take on a tinge of defensive
resentment. [Note: A Mormon elder answered this point by telling me that, just
as Christ was murdered to dedicate the Bible, Joseph Smith was murdered to
dedicate the BOM! (Smith was murdered in his jail cell.) I then embarrassed him
in front of his companion by pointing out that his own religion says Joseph
Smith is not the testator of the BOM – Christ is, which is why the cover
says Another Testament of Jesus Christ. “If the BOM is actually Another
Testament of Joseph Smith, as you say”, I asked, “what are the other
testaments he died to validate? Or did your religion also screw up by putting Another
in the title?” He sneered that if he’d known I was going to nit pick his words,
he’d have brought a thesaurus! (He meant to say dictionary: Our problem
is English!) The dog had returned to his vomit, and I knew the
conversation was over.]
“My last point”, I said to my Mormon friend, “concerns the
validity of your Mormon priesthood. You have correctly stated that the
Levitical, or Aaronic, priesthood was flawed and had to be replaced (He 7).
And you have said that your Mormon priests are the priests after the order of
Melchisedec. However, the reason the Levitical priesthood was flawed and had to
be replaced was because the sons of Aaron were mortal; they were temporary;
they died. The value of Melchisedec, priest of the most high God, is that he is
immortal, without father, without mother, without descent, having neither
beginning of days, nor end of life; but like the Son of God; abideth a priest
continually. Therefore, in order to be a Melchisedecian priest, your Mormon
priests would have to satisfy those requirements. Are they immortal? Have they
no father and mother who birthed them? Have they no beginning of days nor end
of life? What makes the Mormon Church think they really are priests after the
order of Melchisedec? In fact, haven’t you confused the Levitical and the
Melchisedecian priesthoods? There were many Levitical priests. But the
Melchisedecian priesthood is always spoken of as singular, never plural
(He 7:11,15,17,20,21,23-28). It is done that way because only God has no parent
and no beginning of days. Only Jesus Christ is spoken of as our Melchisedec.”
When my Mormon companion had nothing to say about any of this, I
pointed out to him that there would be good answers to all of the points I
brought up if Mormonism were of God. I urged him to study the issues, to
talk with his elders, and come to me for help if he wanted. I also urged him to
let me know if he had any success finding valid refutations to my points
because I, too, am interested in knowing the truth.
He never contacted me, never invited me to meet
his Melchisedecian elders, and he never left Mormonism. That means one of two
things: First, he found valid answers but hasn’t enough love for the Lord and
for me to share God’s truth with me. Or, second, he is a hypocrite who is
content to live in a religious system about which he [now] has serious
fundamental doubts. The fact is Mormons simply cannot handle the above truths
of the Bible that invalidate their religion, their BOM, and their founding
false prophet. That is why all Mormons quickly do what they’ve been taught to
do – retreat from the Bible to the sanctuary of the BOM. They will tell
you they know the BOM is true because they trust their “feelings” – just like
the angel Moroni told them: “…ask God…and if ye shall ask with a sincere
heart…he will manifest the truth of it unto you” (Moron 10:4). Notice three
things: First, that laughable “test” is the same one all false religions tell
their converts to use. Second, it is inconclusive because it can be effectively
countered by someone else’s “sincere knowledge.” Third, the “test” is classic
Age of Reason carnality because it relies on self-evidence and man being the
measure of all things. Only Jesus Christ instructs His followers to reject the
inputs of self and use His Book to know the truth. You must not only be able to
recognize carnal Reasoning in others, you must also recognize it in you and
never let yourself fall for it. All false religions will try to get you to stop
using your Sword because it is the one thing they cannot handle.
When witnessing you must stay focused on the Bible. If you find they are not
interested in the Bible do not cast your pearls before swine. I say again,
never allow yourself to be sidetracked into a discussion about the BOM, the
NWT, the NAS, your “sincere feelings”, or layman’s aids based on the ERROR manuscripts. If people are interested in looking into the Bible
version issue with you in order to see if the KJV really is the inspired word
of God, fine, because if they don’t know the word of God exists you will be
unable to get them to abandon Reason and by faith submit to the authority of
the word of God. All people who reject the existence of the word of God as
defined by God are Bible rejecters. Let them alone. Never be tricked by
carnal Reason into fighting for the King without His Sword.
This chapter shows you why in Acts 2 the Holy
Ghost is present and working; why “tongues” are spoken; that the subject is a
miraculous sign; that interpreters are never needed; and that real tongues
cannot ever be abused. It also shows why in 1 Cor 14 the Holy Ghost is
uninvolved; that only “unknown tongues” are spoken (note the difference from
what is spoken in Acts 2); that the subject is edifying the church; that
interpreters are present and always needed and required; and that “unknown
tongues” can be abused. You will also learn about 1 Cor 14:14, which is the
last-ditch verse used by charismatics when all of their other verses to “prove”
gibberish is Scriptural have failed when they are confronted by a Bible
believer.
CHAPTER EXCERPTS:
1 Co 14:34-38: The whole chapter so far has been dealing exclusively with men
because they are the only ones who speak in church. The explanations have been
careful, patient, even respectful. But now in a quick five-verse, almost
parenthetical change of subject, women are dealt with briefly and decisively.
Women are to remain silent in church. Period. And just in case that isn’t clear
enough for New Testament Christians we are given a specific example that
has been rejected ever since the “roaring twenties” and women’s liberation: If
a woman wants to lean over in church and ask her husband something about the
Bible, about the sermon, etc., she is not allowed to do so because she
is to remain zip lip and ask him later at home! Why? Because it is a
shame for any woman to speak in church. It could not possibly be clearer.
(“Have you not read?” “Is it not written?” “Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do
not the things which I say?”) This verse should not be used as a proof text
that women shouldn’t be preachers because, by ignoring the strict wording of
the example, that would allow people to think it is permissible for women to
ask their husband a question in church. In other words, it relaxes the obvious
meaning of the rule. This is an excellent indicator of the power tradition has
to make the word of God of none effect because when you and your wife read this
New Testament commandment you will not want to believe, accept, and be
governed by what it plainly says. Because you took reading in the first
grade you can see that it isn’t confusingly written and has no challenging
vocabulary words. It is simple and straightforward: V.34 mentions the rule;
v.35a gives a specific example of the rule so nobody will be tempted to think
the rule applies only to preaching; v.35b says the reason for the specific
example is to prevent the shameful breaking of the rule; and v.37 is nothing
short of the Bible emphasizing its authority by pointing its finger in our
impudently-willful faces and challenging us – if we claim to be Christians – to
humbly acknowledge that these verses are rules from God. V.37 is a quick jerk
on the leash to remind us the Master is watching; it is the Drill Sergeant who
has been issuing instructions in a neutral tone suddenly and briefly reminding
us of His terrible authority by fixing His gaze on us and demanding, “Have you
got that, soldier?!” or “Is that clear?!” in order to force our active, vocal,
submissive assent in an effort to prevent passive, silent, rebellious
rejection. This verse snaps us back to attention and forces us to take the
entire chapter seriously. If you’ve ever been in or under authority you
recognize all that goes into this verse. In v.38 the sudden sharp tone of the
previous verse begins to fade – but not the veiled threat.
. . .
1 Co 14:40 requires an understanding of much of the Bible and is why Bible
believers find the gibberish doctrine not only unscriptural, but also offensive
to Godly order. Mature Christians have a deep and clear understanding of
Biblical principles concerning authority, hierarchy, master/servant, head/body,
carnality, fasting, drunkenness, order vs. chaos, submission vs. independence,
having power on your head, and the beauty, peace, and harmony that results when
total control meets total submission. They actually identify with those
concepts and therefore understand that gibberish is absolutely contrary to
everything the Bible wants us to become. How is gibberish so contrary to
everything Biblical? Because the head does not rule well over its own body. The
body is acting independently of the head. Not only does the head not know what
is being said, neither does the body have any idea. (Obviously I’m treating
gibberish as if the Cretians are under the external control of devils. If they
are not under the control of devils the Cretians themselves are in
control and do know what they are saying – nothing.) The body has
risen to a position of dominance over the now meekly submissive head. The very
head that was commanded by God to rule the body is now disgraced, which means
God is disgraced (1 Co 11:3). We are told to rule our tongues in order
to carefully govern what we say and to ensure that everything we say glorifies
God. Gibberishers proudly and foolishly claim to have no control over their
mouths and no knowledge of what they say.
The body of a gibberisher has completely usurped the prerogatives
of his head. That is robbery, rebellion, trespass, and witchcraft. (Having
gotten this far in this book, you should be able to explain why I chose each of
those four words.) The man who claims to be involuntarily speaking gibberish is
no different from the man who is drunk; he has lost control. The very idea that
any Christian would think it was Scriptural when some dopey preacher trying to
get him to do gibberish says, “Just go with ‘it’, let yourself go” is an
appalling testimony to the terrifying depths of depravity to which the church
has sunk. And when a Swordbearer points out to them how dreadfully unscriptural
and anti-Scriptural the whole thing is, he then has to suffer through asinine
carnality as these Cretians angrily respond with, “Well, I know how I feel when
I’m doing it, and it feels good: It feels like I’m loving Jesus!” That’s like a
moron who brutally rapes a two-year-old girl and then justifies it by angrily
saying, “But how can something that feels so good be bad?” (That comparison is
somewhat specious but I’ll allow it to make the point that feelings mean
nothing, and I’ll let it underscore how offensive the gibberish cult is
to all that the Bible teaches us about discernment vs. carnal Reason.)
. . .
In closing, I have something to say about love.
Love and brotherly love are mentioned in 1 Jn 4:7,8 and defined in 1
Jn 5:2,3 and in 1 Jn 3:16. If we spare the rod and don’t rebuke each
other we don’t really love each other. But as much as the church needs a lot of
spanking today, let’s be careful about using that fact to justify, excuse, or
condone hatred.
We are told to love our enemies. And we are told those enemies are
fellow Christians (Mt 10:34-39). I have a hard time “feeling” like I
love lousy, lazy, lying Christians who are defrauding the church. But while I
do not trust or base anything on my feelings, I do analyze them in an effort to
discern if I am acting out of selfish pride or Biblical love and compassion. For
example, I pray that my anger is a righteous anger motivated by a love
of the truth and not by a puffed-up, prideful love of self. I know that even
when I am armed with Scriptural truth, if I have not charity I am a tinkling
cymbal, I am nothing. I bring this up because I think it is important if the
church is to win the war.
Our heart (not our feelings) is crucial to the war: The
Lord looks for righteous men to stand in the gap. As Abraham’s
questioning of the Lord shows, if He can find even a handful of righteous
Christians He will spare the rest. That’s what Christ did for us, for by the
righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of
life. That’s what Moses did (Nu 14:19,20). I’m not trying to diminish the
unique importance and necessity of what Christ did, I’m trying to show why the
love in 1 Jn 3:16 is so important. If we ever want to be available to stand in
the gap for the church we must love the lousy, lazy, lying
Christians who are defrauding the church. Without that love we really aren’t
trying to help (save) them when we rebuke them – we’re trying to condemn
them. Without that love we are not Swordbearers in God’s eyes, we are tinkling
cymbals.
I think God accepted Moses’ plea for the church because He saw the
love in him required for forgiveness. Moses’ love was not a mere formality; it
was genuine. Yes, he got angry at his faithless, lazy, fearful, willful
brethren, but his rebukes and his discipline were those of an angry parent
whose anger and discipline are made righteous by the underlying motivation of
love.
Let us earnestly contend for correct doctrine
and let us reemphasize the rod and other forms of church discipline, but let us
also humbly ask God to give us love.
Among the topics covered are tithing,
collections for the saints, when the New Testament started, usury, debt, and
why it is important to apply Biblical principles to these and every other part
of our lives. (This is not one of those “God will make you rich if you just
send me money” flimflams.)
CHAPTER EXCERPT:
Keep in mind that the tithe was 10%, it was
mandatory, and that it was to support the priests, because we are going to
apply that to the New Testament where the tithe no longer exists.
That’s right, there is no such thing as tithing under the New
Testament. Verses like Lk 11:42; 18:12; Mt 23:23 did not happen in the
New Testament era. Christ lived under the Old Testament in the Old
Testament era. That’s why He kept the law. The New Testament did not go into
effect and the New Testament era did not start until He died
on the cross (He 9:16,17). Nowhere does the Bible say any testament goes
into effect when a Great Commission is given, or when anyone is baptized with
the Holy Ghost, or receives power from the Holy Ghost, or has cloven tongues
like as of fire sit on them. It says the Testament of Jesus Christ, which is called
the New Testament because it replaced the Old, went into effect the minute
Christ died up on the cross. And there is no tithing anywhere in the Bible
after Christ died on the cross.
The tithe is gone. The ten percent rule is gone. But voluntary offerings
are still here in the form of “collections.” Notice that the Lord Jesus Christ
never praised any Christian for giving 10%, but He did for giving 100% (Mk
12:44). Offerings are voluntary. Offerings are 100%. The Lord wants
everything we have. But because He already owns the cattle upon a thousand
hills (everything), He doesn’t really want offerings; He wants us
(He 10:5; Ro 12:1; 1 Jn 3:16).
The Pharisees were never able to figure the tithe out because of
their selfish love of money. Their heart wasn’t in the 10% they gave; it was in
the 90% they kept. They incorrectly thought 10% belonged to God and 90%
belonged to them. That’s robbery; we own nothing. Everything we have belongs to
God and He wants us to give everything we have, even our lives, to the church,
to the brethren. That’s why in the New Testament era the tithes and offerings
have been replaced by “collections” (1 Co 16:1-3; Ph 4:15,16; 2 Co 8:2,4; 2
Co 9; Ro 15:26; Ac 4:32; 1 Co 9:13/1 Pe 2:5,9). Collections for whom?
Collections for the saints! Why for the saints? Because the New
Testament priesthood of all believers has replaced the Old Testament Levitical
priesthood. All Christians are priests (1 Pe 2:9; Re 1:6). Therefore,
the New Testament system in which the collections are for the saints is
no different from the Old Testament system of supporting the priesthood
with tithes and offerings.
God calls the New Testament system a collection rather than a tithe because He doesn’t want us to
get the evil idea that “90% is mine.” Less obvious is why He calls it a
collection rather than an offering: It is because nothing is ours to
offer; God is collecting what is already His and distributing it to needy
saints. It is a Christian welfare program, a redistribution of wealth to help
God’s priesthood of believers.
So if your fellow Christian can’t afford a
hula-hoop for his kid you don’t have to be a Pharisee by telling him, “Be ye
warm and filled, but I’ve already given my tithe.” There is no tithe. If you
can help him in some way you will want to do it because love
fills you with charity towards the members of your Family. That
is the New Testament “tithe” and that’s the way it was supposed to happen in
the Old Testament, too.
This chapter makes it clear why the only one of
the Ten Commandments not repeated in the New Testament is the Fourth
Commandment. It also proves that all examples of God's people keeping the
sabbath in the gospels were because they were living under the Old Testament
before Christ's death on the cross instituted His New Testament (Heb 9:16-18).
And after the cross there are zero examples of Christians keeping the sabbath.
What the sabbath was supposed to teach us is explained.
CHAPTER EXCERPTS:
Since Saturday worship is not a New Testament
institution like it was in the Old, is it still OK for people to go to church
on Saturday? Yes, the New Testament says we can worship God on any day of the
week.
But we need to deal with the fact that the sabbath is an everlasting
covenant. In doing so I hope to help you see how to live in this New Testament
era by learning from the Old Testament and applying it to your life. We can
depend on God’s consistency by comparing the two Testaments in order to further
our knowledge of His will. Let me show you what I mean with an easy example – circumcision.
Christ’s disciples knew circumcision was an everlasting
covenant (Ge 17:10-14). Because of that some sabbath groups today
believe the Apostles made a grievous error when they terminated the requirement
to circumcise the penis in the New Testament (Ac 15:1-11,23,24). But
because these groups cannot come right out and reject that plain but (to them)
offensive New Testament teaching that keeping the law and circumcising your
penis actually subvert your souls (v.24), they often publicly downplay
circumcision while in private hypocritically advising the continuance of the
subversive doctrine. They simply cannot understand how the Apostles could end a
covenant that God made everlasting while at the same time claiming that God
thinks we’ll do well (Ac 15:28) as long as we keep the strange list in Ac
15:29 (which I’ll cover in a minute).
The fact is the Apostles did not frivolously and suddenly do away
with penis cutting. They had been taught by Christ how to study and apply the
Bible. Therefore they knew circumcising the penis was merely a type of
something else. The real circumcision was the circumcision of the heart
(Je 4:4; Ac 7:51; Ro 2:28,29; Ga 5:2,3,6; 6:12-15; Co 2:11), just like
ripping garments was supposed to be a picture of repentance in the heart (Joe
2:13). The only reason the Lord made His people cut their penises and rip
their garments was because they couldn’t cut and rip their hearts. (The Bible
makes it clear that our Natural tendency is to hide behind a superficial action
like tithing, circumcision, and Saturday church attendance while ignoring the
heart.) The Apostles may have figured out the unimportance of penis cutting
by thinking: “Hmm, God rebuked us for not having our hearts circumcised
even though He told us to circumcise our penises. The fact that we did
physically circumcise our penises together with the fact that we cannot
physically circumcise our hearts means God is actually interested in some other
action on our part. What He really wants from us is submissive obedience.
It is therefore OK to eliminate physical circumcision completely.”
But the next logical question about the Apostles is, even though
they figured out that penis cutting is a superficial type or picture of submissive
obedience, by what authority did they do away with the actual,
physical penis cutting that God Almighty established? Shouldn’t they have
submissively obeyed the penis cutting established in God’s Old Testament and
simply made it clear that physical circumcision is just a symbol of submissive
obedience? These questions are very important because the issue in the Bible is
authority.
Anything God does has His authority behind it. That’s why, when He
made kings masters over their subjects, husbands masters over their wives,
parents masters over their children, etc., He expected those under authority to
obey their authorities as if the authorities were God. When God made Moses the
authority over Christians, He expected those Christians – including Aaron – to
obey Moses as if he were God (Ex 4:16). That’s how Moses knew he had the
authority to invent rules about divorce, and that’s why God supported Moses.
Paul and the other Apostles understood they were like Moses and the prophets
who were used by God to write His Old Testament, and therefore knew New Testament
Christians were expected by God to obey them as if they were He. That’s how
Paul, even though he hadn’t received any specific commandments from God, knew
he had God’s permission to invent
guidelines (1 Co 7:6). Paul spoke with the authority of God. Therefore,
any and all writings of the Apostles that God put in His Bible are God’s
writings. That Moses-like authority is why the Apostles rebuked Christians who
practiced circumcision and who kept the Old Testament law by saying we
gave no such commandment (Ac 15:24)! That’s the same as saying, “God
didn’t tell you to do that.”
The reason the Apostles didn’t continue to obey
the penis cutting of the Old Testament’s Fourth Commandment is they understood
a simple fact that many Christians today don’t seem to be able to grasp: When Christ’s
death instituted His New Testament it superseded/replaced/did away with any
previous testaments of His. In other words there was no longer a Fourth
Commandment to obey! The Apostles had to discern which, if any, of the old
Ten Commandments God wanted to be included in His New Book of Rules. It is
obvious to the man of faith that God wanted the other nine repeated in the New
Testament era because they appear in the New Testament. And the absence of the
Fourth Commandment in the New Testament means God did not want it included.
. . .
But why does God consider His Old Testament
rules like physical circumcision, indeed, the entire law (Ac 15:24) to
be troubling and subversive if they are still practiced today?
Subversion means to overthrow, to corrupt, to undermine, to cause the downfall
of. Therefore nothing in God’s Old Testament can remain in effect if His
New Testament is to be authoritative. If all or some of the Old Testament did
remain in effect we could pick and choose things to obey or ignore from both
the Old and New Testaments if and whenever we felt like it. In that way we
would become the authority, we would make the decisions, we would
be the head. But because of the way wills work if our Father writes a will at
one point, later changes His mind and writes another, and then dies, it doesn’t
matter which will we prefer; we are stuck with the new one! And anything He
liked in His first will He had to repeat in His second will or it would become
ineffective along with the entire first will. God’s New Testament is now
in effect. And it had better be the only one in effect if we are to be
saved because the only thing the Old Testament did was curse and
condemn. That fact is behind verses like Ac 15:24 and Ga 5:4.
One of the easiest and most popular chapters, this
effortlessly shows that Christ was not crucified on “Good Friday” in order to
be only a day and a half in the ground. He was crucified on Wednesday. All of
your questions are answered.
CHAPTER EXCERPT:
Most Christians believe the Lord Jesus Christ was
crucified on Good Friday and rose from the dead just in time for a sunrise
Easter church service. That would mean He was buried during what we’d call
Friday night, all day Saturday, and Saturday night, for a blasphemous total of
one day and two nights – which means they are all wrong.
My main objective in this chapter is to show you
how conclusively the Scriptures establish a Wednesday crucifixion, a sunset
burial, and a resurrection at sundown at the end of Saturday. But I’m also
going to show you how powerful tradition is and how inept, unbelieving,
deceitful, cowardly, and blindly loyal to their denominations Christians can
be. This is a perfect topic to use because, ignoring the fact that the Good
Friday tradition makes the word of God of none effect (which itself is a high
crime), a Wednesday crucifixion doesn’t really affect any denominational
doctrines and doesn’t affect anyone’s lifestyle. That means the Wednesday
crucifixion is a harmless doctrine. It is easy to understand how some
Christians could be reluctant and afraid to accept some of the big doctrines
covered in earlier chapters, but this Good Friday business is completely
benign. Why then are the denominations so afraid of it? Because it goes against
tradition. Tradition means/involves a lot of people. And our natural
insecurity, which is intensified when we aren’t experts on the Bible, makes us
timidly assume that out of all those people – including some “big names” –
there must have been at least some who were experts on the Bible, understood
the Good Friday issue, and were correct about it. I hope this chapter will help
destroy your faith in tradition and in “all those people” who created it. And
then, if you’ve been reluctant to seriously address some of the earlier
chapters because they seemed too “different” and because you assumed your
church probably correctly understood those issues, I hope you’ll begin to
believe what the Bible says: If your church can’t even handle small doctrines
like Good Friday, how can it handle big doctrines? And if you can’t handle
small doctrines like Good Friday and stand up for the truth about it, what
makes you think you’re a Swordbearing Christian warrior armed and prepared for
war?
The earlier chapters about sex often cause
Christians to have specific – and explicit – questions about sex and sin. This
chapter dares to answer them.
CHAPTER EXCERPTS:
Then when is Mt 5:28 a sin? When the
unsinful “lust A” of Ja 1:14 becomes the sinful “lust B” of Ja 1:15.
Lust A must conceive in order to produce sin. Your temptation,
your lust, conceives the instant you agree to give in and do that
which it is unlawful to do. Go back to Mt 5:28 and let me show you why the
words after her and with her are in the verse. I’m
going to use an example to show that, unless you intend to do
something unlawful with her, you haven’t lusted after her
in your heart.
. . .
So the next time you see a guy lusting and
drooling over the gorgeous and tempting pictures in a magazine, relax, it’s OK
– it’s not a sin. But if you see him put the food magazine down and break his
fast by sneaking something from the refrigerator, he has sinned. In
fact, according to Mt 5:28, he sinned in his heart the second his lust
conceived when he decided to partake of real food instead of just fantasizing
about it via the pictures in the magazine.
This chapter boldly teaches Scriptural
definitions of words you have never heard preached about in church. It also
shows you how important it is to stick with “thus saith the Lord” when talking
about sin and when trying to make English words sinful to say. (Language that
mocks tradition is used.)
CHAPTER EXCERPTS:
As an ignorant, unsaved Bible rejecter I learned
some things about word usage from the world. These teachings were common
knowledge because they were the product of morality. Morality, as you
know, has nothing to do with God’s authoritative decrees about sin in the
Bible. Morality and ethics actually undermine the authority and prerogative of
God by using the general, or majority, consensus of the masses to determine
good and evil. In other words, morality and ethics are the result of tradition.
For that reason I am neither a moral nor an ethical man. I despise morality and
ethics because they are blasphemy, rebellion, and sin that make the word of God
of none effect. The fact that morality and ethics flourish in Christianity is a
sad testimony to the shocking carnality and ignorance of Christians.
When I got saved I was surprised to learn that
God’s people don’t go to their Lord and Savior for guidance and instruction for
very much at all. We have already covered many major topics that prove that. In
this chapter we are majoring on what many would say is a minor topic, and we
are doing so to prove – again – that Christians are so enamored with tradition
they are not even correct when it comes to simple doctrines such as cussing,
swearing, and taking God’s name in vain. Therefore they still believe and
preach the same pagan blasphemy about word usage that I learned from the world
as an unsaved ignoramus. Let’s look into what I learned from the world in order
to verify that it is the same confusing, contradictory nonsense believed by
morality-promoting, tradition-bound Christians.
. . .
It is not a sin to use any words. Certain actions
are sinful, such as fornication, but it is never wrong to use the word fornication.
In order to make words sinful, preachers needed to redefine words
as actions. So they usurped God’s prerogative by inventing sins that
have made the word of God of none effect. That is an abomination. So let’s
ignore their ignorance-based shock that we have the balls to discuss any topic
under the Son, and their unscriptural offense at our willingness to mock their
moral traditions by using words from “the gutter”, and let’s see why
this issue is in fact not a minor one.
How are we made in the
image of God? Or, perish the thought, could the modern church have this
doctrine all wrong, too? This chapter shows that we do not know our Bibles well
at all. And it shows why the makers of the modern Bible versions that wrongly call
God “She” should study this chapter.
CHAPTER EXCERPTS:
The fact is you and I are not made in the image of God. That is merely
another tradition believed by millions of Christians who don’t think when
they read the words God put in the Bible from which we are to discern true
doctrine.
If I said, “I’m going to
paint a picture; a large, colorful one.” Or if I said, “His son looks
just like he does; tall and freckled”, no one would have any problem connecting
the information after the semicolon with the statement before it, especially
since it is all said in the same sentence and not spread out – here a little
and there a little – among other unrelated info. So if you were asked what the
son looks like you’d reply, “He’s tall and freckled.”
OK, it’s pop quiz time
for all those who earn their paychecks in “full time Christian service.” The
subject matter from which we shall derive our test question comes from these
Bible verses:
And the test question is: How did God make man in His own image?
See what I mean? None
paid the slightest attention to the info after the semicolon! We can only
conclude that either the material was too complex for them to handle, or
tradition has blinded them to what God says.
Only Adam was created in
the image of God. Eve was not created in God’s image, and neither are you and
I.
. . .
The reason none of us
today is in the image of God is because, while Adam was “at the beginning” made
in the image of God, he was shortly thereafter unmade into two separate
people/sexes so he could have an help who was meet for him – because it had
been established that none of the animals was a suitable servant-companion.
That is why when Adam and Eve – neither of whom was in the image of God – had
children, the Bible doesn’t say the children were in the image of God. It says
Adam “begat a son in his own likeness, after his image;
and called his name Seth” (Ge 5:3).
This chapter was added years after The Age of
Reason first came out. It is made up of letters answering actual questions
from Christians like you who have studied The Age of Reason and were struggling
with the Christian walk. Many topics are covered such as the issue of the
immortality of the souls of the unregenerate (a doctrine that is dealt with
intermittently throughout the book), how to deal with apostates, the mark of
the Beast, problems in the home, how to go through daily life as a Christian,
and how the Bible really can be used to determine the course we take through
life.
CHAPTER EXCERPTS:
Most Christians do not know the Bible because
they don’t want to. All they want to know about Christianity is “the answers.”
They want a cheat-sheet, a shortcut, so they can know the answers without
really getting to know the subject. That’s why they are so quick to accept what
their church tells them [or what they read in this or some other book] without
first ensuring that it agrees with the entire Bible. But even if they are given
the right answers it does them no good; we must get our beliefs from the Lord.
That is why I always stress that you must sit at His feet and be His disciple.
You must get to know the Shepherd’s voice – not mine. By learning only canned
denominational answers Christians expose themselves as tares – not wheat –
because a man’s relationship with the Bible is an exact picture of his
relationship with Jesus Christ.
People don’t need the right answers from you and
me, Harry; they need to know to Whom they should go for those answers. Through
the Bible and only through the Bible do we establish and develop a relationship
with the Lord. And only in that way can we grow into the kind of confident walk
with Him that He expects.
. . .
Let me say this about praying while I’m
thinking about superficiality. I think our phony prayers either reflect our
relationship with God or Christians have never been taught how to pray. A
prayer is just straight talk with God. One day my wife and I stopped to say hey
to some Christians we knew. During the visit a Christian they knew stopped by
and wanted us to pray that his hand would heal OK because he’d accidentally
shot himself. When he and the other guy prayed, my wife and I silently prayed
along, but everyone else was constantly saying stuff like: “Oh yes, Father”,
“Yes, Jesus”, “Oh, Jesus”, “Thank you, Jesus” and “Oh, Father.” But during my
turn to pray aloud not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse! Because
nobody has ever taught me how to pray, and because my method of prayer was
different from theirs, I assumed they thought I wasn’t good at praying. To give
you an idea of how I prayed, turn to and read aloud Mt 6:9-13 in a
normal voice. Now I’ll say the Lord’s prayer the way these people prayed: “Oh
Father, we come to you, Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name,
Father. Thy kingdom come, oh, Father. Thy will, Father God, be done in earth,
as it is in heaven, oh yes, dear Father. And, Father, give us this day, Father,
our daily bread, and we’ll thank you for it, Father…etc.” And while they prayed
that way, their tone of voice was going up and down like a dingy on the high
seas, and the people were constantly saying the above asides. Now, ordinarily I
wouldn’t care how people prayed, but they obviously didn’t like my Mt 6:9-13
method of praying. Is there something wrong with doing things the way the
Bible teaches us? Why doesn’t my voice dramatically rise and fall like a dingy?
Why, when my sister and I wanted the car in high school didn’t we go to our
father and pray: “Oh Father, we come to you now, Father, to humbly beseech you,
Father, that in your infinite mercy, Father, you might grant and ordain,
Father, that we might have the car keys, Father, and we’ll thank you for them,
Father – oh yes, Father Dad. We’re decorating the gym, oh Dad – yes, Father –
and should be home, dear Father Dad, before lunch, oh Dad. So give us the keys,
dear Father, and give us traveling mercies, Father, that we might be safe, oh
Dad…etc.” I don’t talk to any real person like that and I don’t talk to my real
God like that. And I think that’s the way the Pharisees prayed.
. . .
You should have three real and immediate
objectives. When I say immediate I don’t mean they should be accomplished by
next month or next year. I mean immediate as in first and foremost objectives:
1) You must learn the Bible. That means stay home and study. It doesn’t mean go
out and spar with your preacher and fellow pewsters. 2) You must gradually
bring your family under your control. 3) You must educate your family about the
Bible.
. . .
Also, if I may submit one more thing for your
consideration: Your viewpoint on life should be a strong and positive one. Your
Biblical relationship with the Lord should make you humble and obedient enough
to be a strong warrior who, as a doer, confronts problems and solves them.
Problems include not just things that are obviously unscriptural, but also
things that you don’t like – things that make you uneasy. Being strong and in
control should be conveyed not just by your actions, but also in your speech.
The weak will whine, “I wish I could stop smoking”, but you say, “I stopped
smoking because I wanted to.” The weak will whine, “I wish I’d been brave
enough to fight Goliath”, but you say, “I fought Goliath in spite of my fear.”
The weak will whine, “I wish I’d lived a better Christian life”, but you say,
“I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have
fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:
Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord,
the righteous judge, shall give me at that day.” The weak will whine, “I wish I
had saved more money”, but you say, “I just revamped my savings program because
I decided it was best to do so.”
Let others express regrets for their failures. If you and I are
warriors, we’ll be men of action – not passive whiners who watch life get ahead
of them. Yes, we’ll screw some things up, but we’ll adjust and fix them.
Mistakes and sins are inevitable parts of the fight because we are ignorant
sinners striving to learn, to grow, and to be perfect. Perfection isn’t looking
back at a sinless life; perfection is being a proper servant who is always
ready, willing, and able to serve the Lord by doing anything He wants to the
utmost of his ability. Perfection is being a doer of the word. A weakling and
loser is the whiner who sincerely wished he’d done this or that when the
opportunity presented itself.
Learn to be in control of everything. Be in control of your speech
as well as yourself, your household, and everything within your jurisdiction in
life. Be in command of your areas of responsibility because it’s your duty,
it’s your job. Rule and reign with Christ today, tomorrow, and forever. Make
mistakes along the way, but always have a perfect record as a doer along
the way. We are here to be perfect doers – not sinless. And then if God is
happy with our lives as doers, if He sees He can count on us as obedient men of
action, He’ll not impute sin to us.
Be like David; when he sinned he didn’t become a
whiner and let it defeat him: He continued being a man of action by repenting and
making it right. That’s why he never made the same mistake twice. When God’s
prophet went to him and said, “You sinned with Bathsheba”, he didn’t whine, “I
wish I didn’t have a problem with sex.” He took action by repenting and saying,
“It won’t happen again.” And it didn’t; he pressed on with serving God by being
a bold doer of the word.
. . .
Because of your military background and the
decisiveness you’ve so far demonstrated in your Christian walk, I don’t really
worry about your being a doer of the word – with one glaring exception, if I
may be permitted to be critical in a way that I hope is iron sharpening iron:
Whenever you become aware, beyond any doubt in your military mind, of something
the Lord wants you to do, that should become an imperative of the highest
priority. Why? Because we’re here to be doers who are led by the Lord.
That includes timing. When He reveals to you that something needs to be
done, He expects you to do it right away – not whenever you get around to it in
your own sweet time. Do not pattern your Christian walk, Harry, after the way
you’ve handled baptism. If baptism is any indicator, you are not a doer.
Going to Israel confirmed something for me: It’s the doing that matters, not
the setting or the mood. There is nothing grand or glamorous about Israel; it’s
the deeds that were done there that are glorious. Therefore it matters not if
the creeks are cold; if the church you attend is apostate and doesn’t care if
or when you get baptized; if you’d like to wait until your entire family is
ready to be baptized in a big ceremony; or if you have a golf match scheduled:
If God grants you the honor, privilege, and responsibility of knowing His will,
do it! Do it now! Procrastination does not glorify Him; it makes
Him look like an impotent Potentate with lousy, willful, lazy servants. It
makes Him look like He can’t rule well His own household. May I suggest that
you get on your knees, confess your sin, and go get baptized as soon as you can
– no matter how unglamorous the setting, the timing, or the attendance may be?
May I further suggest that you always remember the fact that two years
after you knew you were supposed to get baptized you still hadn’t quite
found the particular combination of weather, setting, attendance, etc., that
you wanted and therefore still haven’t gotten around to it! And use that
embarrassing fact as an example to you and to others of how we are not to serve
Christ. It is a perfect example of selfish, willful carnality and disrespect
for the commanding authority of God Almighty.
. . .
Christianity today is full of “Marthas” who are
cumbered about with much serving (Lk 10:38-42). Martha was full of
“care” and therefore was concerned about many things. She is a perfect picture
of today’s active Christian who is involved in so much. There are many church
groups, activities, prayer breakfasts, ministries, charity works, etc., etc.
And everybody runs around talking about how God “called” them to do something.
I never object when they say that, but I don’t believe it. I think at least 90%
of today’s “callings” are of the flesh. Because I was interested and active as
a young Christian I had preachers and visiting missionaries work on me from the
pulpit. They’d preach their typical soap opera sermons full of emotion in order
to get pewsters worked up and then have an altar call for those who “felt God
calling them” into “full time Christian service” of one kind or another. I
certainly felt the emotion – just like when I watch a movie – but I was careful
to wait for God. Don’t get ahead of Him. Wait, I say, on the Lord.
. . .
In general I do not like children today. They
have no manners, no respect for their elders, and no discipline. They are
sullen and unresponsive. Often when I look into their eyes I’m surprised I
don’t see two OFF flags. And when I speak with their parents I usually see what
the problem is. However, because even undisciplined, uneducated teens and
adults aren’t stupid, they often look around and compare themselves with others
of their generation and realize their parents did a lousy job with them. Sadly,
in spite of that realization they often don’t have the self-discipline to turn
their lives around – and their kids end up just like them. Once when I was in
uniform in a public setting I was approached by a man and wife and their small
boy. They said their child was interested in pursuing a career like mine and
would I please give him some advice. I looked at the little boy and said, “Son,
if you obey your parents and keep your grades up you can do
anything in life you want.” I was shocked, disgusted, and saddened when the
parents laughed, rolled their eyes, and walked away saying, “Obey his parents?
Shit! That’ll be the day! Har! Har! Har!”
I believe parents today lack love and a sense of responsibility. And
if they protest that they do love their children and do accept their
responsibility as parents, then I must conclude they are too selfish and/or too
undisciplined to overcome the Natural inclination we all have to be just as
lazy as we think we can get away with. Therefore, instead of spanking their
children and having to deal with the emotional rebellion that physical
correction is likely to produce (especially in these Enlightened times when
morons think pain is bad), parents convince themselves it is better for their
children if non-physical methods of correction are used. And instead of taking
an active part in their children’s education by occasionally checking their
child’s homework, reading their reports, and beating the laziness and the
willfulness out of them, they later whine, “I don’t understand how she could
turn out this way – we took her to the best schools!” And instead of discussing
the Sunday sermon when eating supper, asking the children about Sunday school
and discussing it with them, having Bible instruction sessions at home, and
kneeling down in the living room and praying with their children, parents later
whine, “I don’t know why she is such a slutty bitch – we always made sure she
went to church!” In general it is an unfortunate fact that churches and
educational institutions today will not use corporal punishment on your
children. Therefore they eliminate the most important part of training up a
child. Because of that it is up to you and your wife to closely monitor what
your children are doing, with whom and where they are doing it, how they are
progressing, how their attitude is, and spank them when they do not please you.
I am not suggesting you cannot yell at your kids
and use other forms of non-physical punishment. But do not fail to make
spanking the form of punishment your children expect when they do wrong. And do
not let anyone tell you it is wrong to discipline your children when you are
mad at them. But do not let your emotions govern your actions: never surrender
the sovereignty of your head to your body. You may allow yourself to have
emotions, but you should always rule over them.
. . .
Here you reveal that you have a huge problem,
Richard: You don’t believe the word of God! You’ve studied it over and
over through your many years in gibberish churches, have taught your family
what the Bible says about gibberish, believe gibberishers to be dishonest liars
about involuntary miraculous utterances, and yet you’ve decided to surround
your family and yourself with unholy liars whose numbers and deceitful
doctrines cause you to doubt your own faith! You even speak the language
of Mars Hill by saying these liars don’t “agree” with your “assessment”
of the Scriptures. In other words, you’ve decided to “agree to disagree” with
unholy liars who have been causing you and your family to doubt the very faith
for which you are supposed to be contending! Is that good leadership? Or
are you defrauding yourself and your own family? No wonder you don’t act
on the Scriptures – you don’t believe them. You muse about them, find them
interesting, find them amazing, but you don’t believe them. You’ve chosen to
sit your whole Christian life among people you felt comfortable with –
otherwise you wouldn’t have spent so many years among them. Your belly likes
them and (you say) your mind doesn’t. Therefore your god is your belly. You
have avoided denominations that are more rigid because you prefer to be around
lazy, effeminate, wishy-washy liars who won’t require anything of you – they
don’t even require you to believe their doctrine! That’s perfect if you just
want to feel good and render lip service. The Bible, however, requires us to
get involved and fight. It says our enemies are they of our own household. But
for some reason over all these years the Lord has never been able to teach your
fingers to fight and your hands to make war.
. . .
Once, as a new Christian, three men I’d been
witnessing to asked me to be at their place at such a time so I could debate
their Catholic priest (whose name, in my mind, was Goliath). I tried not to
show it but I was terrified. How could a young layman like me hope to compete
with an experienced, formally trained priest? But, I’d already spent too much
of my life being concerned with me, and I was determined to be concerned
about the Lord from then on – even if it meant being humiliated, tongue-tied,
and ass-whipped by a Catholic priest.
What happened you ask? I glorified God. But, Len, did you get your
ass kicked by the priest or did you slay Goliath? That doesn’t matter; all that
matters is I went and did it – I was a doer. Yeah, Len, but were you
commandingly eloquent or were you a dry-mouthed, nervous rookie? That doesn’t
matter; God just wants us to be willing to glorify Him. It’s better for you not
to know what happened because it emphasizes the fact that we are to serve the
Lord and leave the results to Him. We are not here to win; we are here
to serve. If we faithfully do that, we shall win – even if it kills us.
You’ve suggested that you may not be very eloquent. You have grown
rapidly and well – that is your eloquence.
When God selected Moses to confront Pharaoh,
Moses screwed up. He said in effect, “Lord, I don’t think you’ve thought this out
properly and therefore haven’t made a good selection by choosing me. My
brother, Aaron, is much more eloquent than I, so why don’t you pick him?” Moses
should have glorified God by treating Him as if He were the all-knowing
God who had His reasons for picking Moses. God does not screw things up. If we
just accept and carry out His will the war will go exactly the way He wants it
to.
. . .
When you ask what I think the mark of the Beast
will be you must understand that nobody can give you a specific answer because
nobody knows. But I can try to help you avoid the mark no matter what it turns
out to be. I believe there is a lot more to the mark of the Beast than
Christians realize. And I believe democracy is intimately involved.
Yes, democracy is just as evil as the Bible reveals it to be.
(People who disagree with that have no inner sanctum.) Do not participate in
democracy. Do not vote. Be a law-abiding citizen. (It is legal to not like
democracy and to not vote.) It is important to stress that point: Do not break
the laws of your country, and do not resist your government. Guns, for example,
are helpful tools out on a country farm and are great aids for defending your
family against intruders. But if the government passed a law that required me
to hand in my guns, my inner sanctum would make a decree and I’d promptly turn
in my guns. My only objective is to serve and glorify God. I couldn’t care less
about the Second Amendment’s guaranteeing me the “right” to keep and bear arms
– or about any other philosophy-based worldly concepts.
If the Antichrist comes to power and rules over
the United States of the World, do not break his laws or resist him in any way.
God wanted Pharaoh, Saul, and Nebuchadnezzar – all types of the Antichrist – to
rule over His people. And He wanted His people to submit to their rule. Look at
Daniel as an example. He submissively and properly obeyed and served his
government (the Antichrist). The eunuch was so obedient, so helpful, and so
trusted by his ungodly bosses that they promoted him to high office (Da
6:1-3). In fact, Daniel was such a model employee of the government – no
anti-abortion activities, no “Christian right” political activism, no
pro-democracy/anti-tyranny planning, no campaign to have the Bible made the law
of the land – that his enemies knew their only chance to get Daniel to resist
governmental directives was to make a law that required him to go against the
God of the Bible (Da 6:5). Daniel chose to humbly submit to the death
penalty rather than comply with their entrapping governmental directive. But
those men were crude and obvious, and their only objective was to kill Daniel.
Satan, however, cannot win by just killing us all; he must deceive us with
subtlety. Let me try to help you see how discernment can be crucial to knowing
when God wants us to submissively obey ungodly government and when He wants us
to humbly submit to the death penalty rather than take the mark of the Beast.
. . .
This is all more difficult for you than it was
for me for the simple reason that I grew much more slowly than you are. It took
me many years to learn the stuff I put in my book. Over many of those years I
didn’t rule my house like I do now. I had to develop both as a servant of
Christ and as a ruler at home. Robin also had to grow both as a servant of
Christ and as my servant. It took years for us to learn and grow and implement
the changes that are now part of our lives, part of who we are. We are clay
vessels the Bible has shaped over time.
. . .
Is my book harmful then because it may be too
much too soon for immature Christians? No, just like it isn’t harmful for
children to sit with their parents in church and hear adult topics preached.
Young children know about mowing the lawn, driving cars, and flying jet
fighters long before they are old enough to attempt them. That adult knowledge
is not harmful to them. Christians who study my book must likewise pace
themselves by not doing things until they have grown enough to handle them.
It’s OK to say, “I’m too young to mow the lawn.”
And it’s OK to say, “I’m too young to handle that Bible doctrine.” Growth is a
good process because it allows us to prepare for the things of tomorrow by
taking care of the things of today. Our Christian walk is done one step at a
time.
. . .
Maybe I’m just trying to say I care about you
and wish the war were somehow easier for me to fight. But war is hell, and I
hope that you’ll not only overlook and forgive my aggressiveness, but that
you’ll discern if what I say is true and helpful or not. I’m doing the best I
can for the Lord and His church, and it’s not easy for me. And, unless I
somehow grow rapidly and radically, I’m not likely to soon change. So, if
appropriate, please use forgiveness as a means of shouldering the part of my
burden I’m not able to carry, and let’s press on together toward the mark for
the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Colossians 2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. |
This chapter explains why
Christ and the Old Testament saints meant it literally when they called pagans dogs.
But by the time of the First Coming many saints had been corrupted by Greek
philosophy – so much so that Christ had to rebuke Nicodemus for not already
understanding the new birth. In order to help us New Testament saints avoid
that same kind of apostasy, Christ put His warning about Greek philosophy in Col
2:8. The early New Testament era Christians from the regions the Apostle
Paul taught doctrine (the Paulicians, Bogomils, Cathari, and Albigenses from Berea, Thessalonica, and Philippi) refused
to let philosophy leaven their doctrine. But the powerful Roman Catholic Church
embraced philosophy and adopted Augustine as its doctrinal guru – and Augustine
is famous for “borrowing” Plato’s “proof” that pagans have immortal souls and
are therefore not dogs. From 1200 - 1400 A.D. the Vatican sent four
Crusades and the Inquisition to exterminate millions of the above
philosophy-hating “heretics” who rejected Rome’s Augustinian doctrines. That is
why more than a century later, the ex-Catholic Protestant reformers – who
didn’t know the Bible any better than they had as Catholic priests – never
thought to question the pagan origin of Catholicism’s doctrine of the
immortality of all human souls...they simply carried it over into their
Protestant denominations because it was “common knowledge.” That is how the
doctrine became blindly accepted by the majority of modern Christians - even
though they never studied it! All relevant Scripture and all
arguments used throughout history on this topic are explained.
CHAPTER EXCERPTS:
This chapter is likely
to be the only comprehensive, in-depth Bible study you will ever find about
this important subject. In spite of the fact that many beliefs and practices
within modern Christianity are influenced by this long-standing tradition, the
sad fact is – no matter what church or theological school you attend, and no
matter what side of the controversy you are on – you have never had this
doctrine adequately and formally covered in sermons, Sunday schools, Bible
school curriculums, or home Bible study.
. . .
You will notice I often
say “the immortality of pagan souls” instead of the more common “the
immortality of souls.” That is because I want you to focus on the crux of the
issue. No Christian denies that born-again saints have immortality and
therefore live beyond the grave; everybody agrees on that. The
controversy is over pagans…have they – through some process other than
the new birth – also received immortality so that they, too, live beyond the
grave? Nobody, no matter which side of the argument they are on, will object to
my being specific by referring to the issue as “the immortality of the souls of
the unregenerate” because, by definition, the generic term “immortality of the
soul” includes pagans. If we attempt to “prove” pagans have life
after death by proving Christians have life after death we are wasting
our time because Christian immortality can be explained by being born of the
Spirit, but pagan immortality cannot. So, since we all agree that Christians
have either 1) immortal souls or 2) mortal souls that gain immortality from the
spiritual birth, and since we all agree that animals have mortal souls and do
not live beyond the grave, let us open the Bible and see if unregenerate
humans have immortal souls (or immortality of any kind) that allows
them to live beyond the grave.
. . .
God
created humans and beasts out of earth (Ge
1:24,25; 2:7). God gave humans and beasts
the breath of life (Ge 2:7; 6:17;
7:15). God made men and beasts living souls that die (Re
8:9; 16:3; Jb 12:10; Ezek 18:4; Ge 2:7; 7:21-23).
So
far we see no difference between men and beasts. In fact, God plainly states
men have no preeminence above beasts because both of them share the same
breath and both die (Ec
3:18-20; Ps 49:12,14,20). In those verses the fact
that both men and beasts are mortal is a big deal because until the
animals in Ge 3:21 died no living
creature had ever seen any other creature die. In order to understand
the significance of mortal death as it relates to men and beasts we need
to examine the angels.
. . .
We’ve
seen how the equality and Reason of Greek philosophy caused God’s people to
reject the inspiration and sufficiency of the Scriptures, split
into denominations, forget the distinctions between spiritual saints and
flesh-only pagans, and variously reject the existence of life after death or to
think even pagans can go to heaven. These apostates became the vast majority
among God’s people and would remain the majority until Christ’s First Coming.
When Christ showed up He was so appalled by their incredible ignorance of the
Bible that in addition to repeatedly and pointedly saying things like, “Ye do
err not knowing the scriptures... Have ye not read...? Is it not written...?”, He even asked with sarcastic exasperation, “Have ye not
read so much as this…?” (Lk
6:3). Let’s examine how Christ’s teachings were in perfect agreement with
the beliefs of Abraham’s generations…but so different from the religious
beliefs of the Maccabees, the Pharisees, the
Sadducees, and many modern Christians.
. . .
The
Lord Jesus Christ’s ministry was a tremendous success, in part because He was
such an outstanding teacher of the Bible. Many people learned a lot of Bible
from Him: There were the two fools on the road to Emmaus (Lk
24:13-35), to whom He opened all the Scriptures and expounded the things
concerning Him. There were the eleven Apostles who sat at His feet for years.
The Apostle Paul was taught by Him in the wilderness. Nicodemus learned things
he should have already known. There were also the Lord’s many disciples,
and it was “of them” that He picked twelve to be “apostles” (Lk 6:13). From these many disciples He
“appointed other seventy also” (Lk 10:1,17). These 85 men profited greatly by having Christ personally
teach them the Bible. As the Lord traveled around the countryside He taught
thousands and thousands of people on hillsides, on lakeshores, in synagogues,
at public water wells, at stonings, and in their
homes. He was always teaching the Bible. Therefore when He returned to
heaven He left a huge army of doctrinally-correct Christians who had learned their doctrine directly from Him.
These
Christians went on to teach others what
Christ taught them. In many cases, these teachings of Christ directly
or indirectly affect the issue of soul
immortality. For example, Paul taught that Ishmael was a pagan, born only
of the flesh; but Isaac was a saint, born of the Spirit of God (Ga 4:22-29)…and Paul expected his New Testament audience to
understand that difference when he referred to people as dogs (Ph 3:2).
Nicodemus taught that people born only of the flesh cannot see or enter the
spiritual realm (heaven and hell), ye must
be born again. Others repeated what they’d learned from Christ about how the souls
of the people who go to Abraham’s bosom and hell have
left their physical first body in the grave and taken their second
body of the new birth to the spirit realm inhabited by God’s spirit children
(Mt 10:28; Lk 12:4,5). Others repeated Christ’s
teaching that the grave is for mortals who have the capability of
dying because they are lower than angels (He 2:9), but that God
created the everlasting lake of fire for His bad angels (Mt 25:41) because
His angels are spirits (He 1:7) and spirits are not able to die (Lk 20:36) in the grave like dogs. The Apostles said Christ
taught them that Judas Iscariot was, before the cross, one of those
spirit children of God’s who was going to the lake of fire (Jn
6:70), but that Paul was one of God’s spirit children who had been to the
spirit realm of the third heaven in his second body (2 Co 12:2-5; Jn 3:3,5). They also passed on the teaching that the Old
Testament saints in Abe’s bosom were spirits (1 Pe
3:19) who were birthed by the Father of spirits. These guardians of Biblical
Christianity also warned everybody about the leaven of philosophy (Co
2:8). In other words, Christ sent His first-century disciples around the world
to teach their brethren the things He had taught them, and He had
them record those same teachings
in His Bible for us. That is why good
Christians get their doctrine from the
Bible/Christ – not from the philosophy-based writings of men like Philo,
Justin, Origen, and Cyril.
Christ’s
teachings were passed on to early New Testament saints, and these teachings are
the evidence that the early church as a whole rejected the Greek
philosophers’ theory that the souls of dogs had everlasting life. In
other words, the early Christians were doctrinally
correct because they accepted all of the above that Christ taught
them about the difference between born-once pagans and born-again
saints.
. . .
The
nascent belief that pagans have immortal souls got its first big boost in the 5th
century when Augustine published his book, The City of God, which
included the world’s first (and only!) “Christian
proof” that pagans have immortal souls. Augustine’s philosophy-based book
effectively marks the reintroduction of Greek philosophy into Christianity.
Because it was disguised in sheep’s clothing it was more effective than the
heavy-handed program of Hellenization imposed upon
God’s people by the Ptolemaic and Seleucid empires. Those Old Testament
attempts to infect God’s people with Reason had caused the well-intentioned Maccabees to rise up in rebellion, but this time there
would be no military resistance because the leaven was coming from within the
church.
Discerning
Bible-based Christians were disappointed when Augustine addressed the immortality
of the soul controversy because of what his “proof” ignored. He chose to ignore
the fact that the Bible says the unregenerate flesh-only man cannot receive and
know spiritual truths, cannot be subject to God’s laws, cannot please Him, and
cannot be anything but enmity against Him. Knowledgeable Christians saw that
Augustine’s proof only dealt with mankind in general by completely
ignoring the Biblical distinctions between saints and the unregenerate. For
reasons unknown to scholars he merely restated Plato’s childish “proof” – and
then used that as the foundation upon which to conclude that all men are made
in the image of God, which is a direct contradiction of what the Scriptures
plainly say (covered in chapter D26, In The Image of God Made He Them),
and that the souls of all men – including the unregenerate that have
been born only of the flesh – are somehow spirit, which gives
them everlasting life.
There were men who read Augustine’s book
and immediately recognized him as an intellectual fraud, such as Vincent of Lérins.
It cannot be determined with certainty whether Vincent and the other discerning
Christians were that smart, or if the majority of Christians was that stupid – but
it did take 850 years for the majority to realize Augustine was a fraud!
Discerning
Christians were unable to stop Augustine’s “proof” from spreading because his
book was quickly adopted by the Roman Catholic Church and accepted as doctrinal
dogma. The immortality of pagan souls became the justification for the Catholic
Church’s high-profile wars to convert pagan nations at sword point…they had
to save the poor creatures from spending their “everlasting lives” in hell!
. . .
As
the centuries went by, discerning Christians lived quiet lives away from the
spotlight of history because, knowing we do not have dominion and understanding
the heathen hoards weren’t pouring into hell, they
were not interested in building empires by conquering kingdoms and building
denominations by recruiting unregenerate dogs. But they were actively involved
in helping each other remain strong in doctrine and weak in the flesh, and they
never hesitated to share the gospel with strangers and exhort Catholics to
study the Scriptures. Precisely who these groups of Christians were and what
their exact doctrines were is unknown because history is written by the victors
– and the Roman Catholic Church wiped these groups out and then wrote their
“history.”
Geographically,
these groups, whose origins go back to the first centuries of the New Testament
era, settled the contiguous regions along the trade and migration routes from
the Caspian Sea, around the Black Sea, and along the Danube River all the way
to the Atlantic. The group names that pop up most frequently in history
include: 1) The Paulicians. This eastern group
of Christians originated in Armenia, which became the world’s first Christian
nation (300 A.D.) and included the region of the old Assyrian Empire in the
vicinity of the Caucasus Mountains. 2) The Bogomils.
This central group was made up of Slavics and Saxons
who spread east and west from the region south of the Balkan Mountains from the
Adriatic Sea to the Caspian Sea – an area centered around the cities of Berea,
Thessalonica, Philippi, and Neapolis (Ac 16:11,12; 17:10-13). 3) The Cathari.
This large western group spread all the way across southern Europe from the
Adriatic Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. 4) The Albigenses.
This group of Christians appears to have been part of, or closely linked with,
the Cathari of southern France and northern Italy.
The Albigenses got their name from one of their main
population centers, the city of Albi, in southern
France. The different names may have been nothing more than conveniences of
communication for historical and geographical identification – because the
different names cannot be used to prove they were doctrinally divided into
denominations. For ease of communication I usually refer to them collectively
as the Cathari (pages H7-6 and D24-1).
Doctrinally,
these groups had a number of things in common and, in fact, may have been
homogenous. They completely rejected the spiritual efficacy of the physical
sacraments of the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches (called
“sanctifying grace” in the Roman Church). They rejected the New Testament
validity of the priesthoods of those two denominations. They rejected the
earthly political aspirations of those two churches. And they rejected the
hierarchies of the two. The Cathari refused to call
physical buildings churches, which caused some people to claim they were
anti-church. They embraced Spartan lifestyles and devoted themselves to
preaching the Bible, which they claimed to be more authoritative than the
doctrinal teachings of the Greek and Roman churches. And they rejected the
Roman Catholic doctrine of the immortality of pagan souls. Not surprisingly,
the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches, which excommunicated each other
as heretics and non-Christians, hated these Cathari
groups because their preaching convinced many Christians to leave the two
powerful denominations. Both churches labeled the Cathari
heretics, non-Christians, and followers of cults such as the Manichean
dualists. Because historians have never found any evidence linking the Cathari with Manichaeism, it is believed medieval Catholic
historians linked the two merely because of some dualistic similarities in
doctrine – which are not dissimilar to some things within Christianity and
Catholicism. I’ll cover some of the elements of Cathari
“dualism” shortly, but remember that history contains very few specifics about
their doctrines – except for their rejection of the above-mentioned particulars
of Roman Catholicism.
. . .
By
the early 11th century the Vatican felt so threatened by these
large, growing groups of quiet-living, Bible-preaching heretics that it
actually responded with the murderous violence of Cain – it launched several
full-scale military crusades to wipe out Cathari
population centers.
. . .
The
rotting corpses of millions of Cathari put Christians
who rejected the immortality of unregenerate dogs in a distinct minority, and
it made those who accepted the immortality of pagan souls a distinct majority
that would remain until the Second Coming. However, during the destruction of
the Cathari the Christian majority was embarrassed to
find out Augustine’s proof of the immortality of souls was specious. That
revelation launched many years of intense theological debate and religious and
political maneuvering, which are of great doctrinal and historical interest to
those studying this topic. Let’s examine that debate within the context of
history.
. . .
When the fourth crusade against the Cathari completed the task of razing their remaining towns
and slaughtering the inhabitants, the Vatican commanded the Inquisition to
sniff out, torture, and kill any survivors who had gone into hiding. Because
dead people cannot discuss doctrine, it looked as if Rome had finally done away with those who
questioned the validity of the Catholic tradition that pagan souls are
immortal. But then the unexpected happened: A man named Averroes reached out
from the grave, discredited the only “Christian proof” of heathen immortality,
and put the Vatican into another panicked defense of not only its doctrinal
competence, but also its continued status as a social and religious powerhouse.
. . .
Averroes showed that the
philosophical arguments of Plato and Augustine were specious when he
demonstrated conclusively and undeniably that Augustine’s Plato-based “proof”
of the immortality of human souls actually – if you took Reason seriously –
made a good case for the opposite conclusion! In doing so, Averroes
single-handedly pulled the rug out from under the validity of Plato, the
“church fathers”, Augustine, magisterium, and papal
infallibility. This was a huge crisis for the Vatican. If it allowed people to
think Augustine was wrong about heathen immortality, and if it allowed people
to think Christ had been literal when He called pagans dogs, they might
question the Vatican’s doctrinal competence, its military conquest of pagan
nations in order to save their souls, and its extermination of Cathari “heretics.”
. . .
But
now that Augustine’s “proof” was openly criticized as specious, and because
most Christians know their church’s doctrines are supposed to be based solely
on the firm foundation of Biblical truth, and because of the reality that many
of the naďvely-faithful had been shocked to learn that Augustine’s brain-dead
“proof” had been the only doctrinal foundation supporting heathen
immortality in over 1,300 years of New Testament Christianity,
Catholicism realized it had a problem it could no longer ignore. Now that the
Augustinian foundation of Roman Catholicism was discredited, scholars could no
longer utilize other Catholic traditions – such as sending missionaries out to
rescue pagans from hell – as backward “confirmations” of the theory that all
souls are immortal. Scholars now had to face the fact that many church
traditions over the centuries had been founded upon Augustine’s assumption –
and subsequent “proof” – that early heretics like Philo, Justin, Clement,
Origen, and Cyril had been correct to teach that God and His saints should not
be taken literally in the Bible when they call pagans dogs. Scholars needed humility
to admit their error, faith to believe what the Bible literally says,
and time to study and grow into doctrinal maturity so they could
dismantle centuries of errors built upon errors. It was all just too much for
the Vatican to handle; too much had been built upon the foundation of heathen
immortality to go back to sola Scriptura. But doctrine wasn’t Rome’s
only problem: Long before the writings of Averroes showed up, spiritual matters
like doctrine had been overshadowed by temporal political, geopolitical,
military, and denominational problems directly related to the Church’s lust for
worldly dominion.
. . .
Second,
the Vatican began looking for someone with the intellectual ability to salvage
the sagging credibility of the never-proven doctrine. It selected the
well-known scholar, Dominican bishop, and teacher of philosophy, Albertus Magnus (1200-1280). Albertus was an excellent choice; he was the foremost
scholar of his time, and is the only one to be given the title “the Great”
(which is what magnus means). But Albertus quickly found out why the immortality of pagan
souls had never been proven: there are no examples in the Bible of Egyptians,
Philistines, Persians, Babylonians, or any other pagans living beyond the
grave; all examples involve God’s people. If Albertus
tried to take the examples of God’s people (apples) living beyond the
grave and apply them to pagans (oranges), he would expose himself as an intellectual
dunce, be stripped of his magnus title, and
become Albertus Idiotus.
. . .
Albertus’ frustrating
attempts to make it look like he’d proven the traditional Catholic doctrine
were all embarrassing failures.
But
nobody blamed him and nobody tried to call him Albertus
Idiotus; because every scholar who’d ever examined
the issue knew it could not be proven by Reason, was not in the Bible, and in
fact seemed to contradict a number of places in the Bible. When scholars and
theologians saw Albert the Great fail, it merely convinced them that any
Christian of lesser intellect who attempted to prove the doctrine was also
going to fail – and was going to expose himself as Biblically and
intellectually immature. That is why no serious Christian scholar since Albertus Magnus has ever tried to publish a comprehensive
Biblical proof that pagans have immortal souls.
. . .
...the Vatican…decided to go ahead and take its
third step to establish the credibility of pagan immortality: it assigned its
brilliant liberal scholar, Dominican friar, and philosopher, Thomas Aquinas
(1225-1274), the task of formally recognizing the doctrinal validity and
credibility of Reason as part of Christianity. He was not told to prove the
immortality of pagan souls because Albert the Great had already proven it
couldn’t be done. Aquinas merely said in passing that the reason man doesn’t want
to die is because he can’t – his soul is immortal. And he assured
Christians that they could continue trusting the teaching magisterium
of the Catholic Church.
. . .
…so they took the fourth
step…in 1323 Thomas Aquinas was made an official Roman Catholic saint for his
work of integrating Reason and Christianity, and he displaced Augustine as the
Church’s foundation. All resistance and scholastic debate stopped, and the
acceptance of the never-proven and no-longer-open-for-discussion doctrine of
pagan immortality was assured among the ignorant and uncaring masses.
Another
factor that influenced the spreading acceptance of the theory that pagans have
immortal souls was the leaders of the Protestant Reformation all grew up Roman
Catholics who trusted in the validity of the works of a Christian saint, their
own Thomas Aquinas, and therefore never questioned the revolutionary changes
wrought by the Age of Reason. Not one of the leaders of the Protestant
Reformation knew enough Bible to question the never-proven (!) belief
that pagan souls have immortality without the spiritual birth. Probably the
closest any Reformer ever came to learning the truth was the brilliant John
Calvin. He learned enough Bible to realize the new birth is a sovereign
parental act of God and has nothing to do with the carnal “free will” of the
unregenerate. Had he not been so preoccupied with establishing Christian
political dominion on earth he might have had the study time to discern the
centuries-old unsolved parable of the difference between the saved and the
unsaved. At any rate, nobody has ever been able to Scripturally prove pagans have immortal souls. That
is the reason the doctrine has become such an embarrassment to the modern
church that nobody seriously preaches and teaches it. I say again, nobody
has ever been able to Scripturally prove pagans
have immortal souls. And if anyone ever does, he will be more famous among
theologians than Plato, Augustine, and Aquinas.
The
ex-Catholic priests who started the Protestant Reformation founded a new breed
of Enlightened denominations that would believe (until the mid 19th
century) Reason was God’s gift to mankind to reveal His Natural Law. These
Protestant denominations simply and blindly accepted (until the mid 19th
century) the Bible PLUS Reason as the foundation of doctrine, and by the time
they found out Reason and Natural Law never existed, they had already
revolutionized the social order of Western civilization, including church and
civil government, economics, education, and the purpose of warfare (to fight
for democracy rather than religion).
The
incorporation of Reason into Christianity allowed the theory that pagans have
immortal souls to survive without ever being proven. Reason also caused
theology to wax…while faith, Biblical literacy, and Biblical literalism waned.
. . .
Therefore Augustine’s theory that pagan humans
have immortal hell-bound souls did not come from the Bible. That’s why today’s
encyclopedias openly state that the Christian doctrine of the immortality of
the soul is not supported by either Testament of the Bible, but came to
Christianity from the Greek philosophers. (Go look it up in your encyclopedia. Britannica’s
Micropćdia has it under “soul”; and in the Macropćdia under “Christianity” find the section “Christian
thought and doctrine”, and in the subsection “Christian Philosophy” read the
part called “History of Christian philosophy.”) The pagan origin of the
doctrine is not a mystery. I say again, it is very well known.
. . .
Natural Law and Reason remained the
common-knowledge status quo for centuries in Western civilization in general,
and in Christianity in particular. But in the early-to-mid 1800s, people,
including retired-president Thomas Jefferson, decided to look into the
foundations of democracy. These people were shocked when they learned the only
foundation and origin of democracy is the specious pagan Reasoning of the
philosophers, which, incredibly enough, had also been used as the foundation of
the Age of Reason, Western civilization, and the doctrine of the immortality of
pagan souls! It was the crumbling credibility of Natural Law that caused Noah
Webster to admit in his Dictionary of 1828 that the existence of Natural
Law was very much doubted. And it was the reason politicians and lawyers in the
1830s wanted our Natural Law/human-Reason-based legal system to be replaced by
one based on the Bible. And it is why no Christian since 1849 has published a
doctrinal treatise trying to finally prove pagan souls are
immortal. And it was the reason, in the early 1860s, the eleven Protestant
denominations in the United States that formed the National Reform Association
wanted the U.S. Constitution rewritten to remove the shame of our having a
godless government and to make the government of the U.S. based on the Bible.
But the National Reform Association failed to convince the majority to base the
U.S. government on the Bible because the Christians who actually understood why
Reason is bad were outnumbered by the ignorant majority.
Understanding that historical context,
let’s go back to the era of the ex-Catholic Protestant reformers who started
their own denominations – because that era is when the modern doctrinal theory
of “eternal security” was derived from the Natural Law doctrine of pagan
immortality.
. . .
There have been no modern attempts to
prove pagan immortality. Way back in 400 A.D. Augustine tried to prove it using
Reason and Scripture. He failed. Albertus Magnus
tried it several times using Reason and Scripture in 1250 A.D. He failed. For
the next 600 years nobody – Catholic or Protestant – tried because they
realized all of the arguments had already been discredited. When the Protestant
Reformation and the Age of Reason got underway, deceitful and ignorant
Catholics and Protestants merely reused the same old tired and discredited
“proofs” in order to appear doctrinally competent in front of small, gullible
audiences. I say again, Albertus Magnus’ failed
attempt in about 1250 would be the last formal scholarly attempt to prove pagan
immortality…
…until 1849.
But let’s set the stage before we get to
the only Christian in the last 750 years who dared to step forward and try to
become the only man in history to doctrinally prove pagans have
everlasting life.
In the first and second decade of the
1800s, research into the origins of the fundamental ideologies of Western
civilization exposed Reason and Natural Law as pagan mythology, which started
decades of debate over what to do about the fact that our modern democratic
society was founded on a lie that originated with and was propagated by pagan
Greek philosophy. The debate would rage until the late 1860s when the
Protestant National Reform Association’s attempt to Christianize American
government met a shocking-but-telling defeat at the hands of the majority.
Right in the middle of that period Rev. Luther Lee, a minister of the
gospel and a Wesleyan Methodist professor of theology, became the only
Christian since Albertus Magnus to publish a formal
attempt to prove pagans have immortal souls and can go to hell. That was 1849,
and since then…nothing.
Our narrative begins when Rev. Lee
started looking for course material to teach a classroom of trusting young
preachers the doctrinal underpinnings of one of the most important and
far-reaching doctrines in modern Christianity – the immortality of pagan souls.
Rev. Lee was a well-respected author in theological circles and had enough
confidence in his knowledge of what God “really meant to say” that he never
hesitated to “correct” his King James Bible by selecting one of the definitions
he considered suitable from his favorite, well-thumbed Greek and Hebrew
dictionary. Remember, this was the 1840s, a period when most Christians still
thought tinkering with the jots and tittles in God’s Book was blasphemy at best
and heresy at worst – which underscores the supreme confidence Rev. Lee had in
his theological competence.
Upon deciding to educate young
Christians in the fundamentals of their faith, Rev. Lee realized he had no
comprehensive doctrinal material available on the immortality of heathen souls,
so he began a scholarly search within his own denomination…and found nothing.
Well, he’d just have to broaden his research to include the theological schools
and libraries of other denominations. Surely they hadn’t been basing
their doctrinal “belief” on the same appalling ignorance as he had all these
years. (Why is it that we have a tendency to lazily assume other
Christians have been the kind of dedicated, motivated, responsible,
knowledgeable experts on Bible doctrines that we have never cared enough
to become?) His extensive research revealed that absolutely nothing existed in
all of Christendom that taught the immortality of the soul! He was shocked to
find that the few times the doctrine was even mentioned, it was in passing – as if the
writer assumed somebody had already proven it! It had been bad enough that his
own denomination had no credible, scholarly, Biblical foundation for its
“belief”, but to find that not a single church espousing the doctrine knew its
rear end from a hole in the ground was worse, because it was clear evidence
that modern Christianity was full of pious, hymn-singing,
collection-plate-filling slothful apostates who didn’t even care enough about
doctrine to master the biggest and most important issues!
And here is where we give credit to Rev.
Lee: In the last 750 years he is the only Christian who has attempted to fill
the gap by being the first man in the history of this planet to publish a proof
that pagans have immortal souls. He wrote a 63-page treatise in 1849 and
published it in 1850 under the title, The Immortality of the Soul. (You
may download Rev. Lee’s book in PDF format from the web page for chapter D27 at
TheSwordbearer.org.) You can fault Rev. Lee for not believing the inspired,
inerrant word of God existed in the mid 1800s; and you can fault him for not
looking into this important doctrine until he had to look like he knew what he
was talking about in front of his Bible students; and, yes, you will quickly
see that he wasn’t informed enough to know what Noah Webster knew back in 1828
– that the Natural Law foundation of both the Age of Reason and the immortality
of the soul was a lie. But we have to look around at every other preacher we’ve
ever known or read about and realize they never knew enough or cared enough to
step up to the plate like Rev. Lee did. He had guts and he had heart…and that’s
more than we can say for anybody else who’s ever pounded a pulpit. Rev. Lee tried.
And, like Plato, Augustine, and Albertus Magnus
before him…he failed.
How do you know he failed even before we
take a look at some of his work? Because you’ve never heard
of him. If he had succeeded in doing what giants failed to accomplish
over the last 2,500 years, he would have become more famous than Plato,
Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas. Go look Rev. Luther Lee up in the encyclopedia
to see what I mean…
He’s not there. He failed.
I’m sure you will find the following
excerpts from the Preface to Rev. Lee’s work as interesting as I did. (I’ve
cleaned up some of his language to make it more intelligible to modern
readers):
This subject…is vastly important. Whether we
have a spiritual nature, or no spiritual nature…and whether sinners who reject
the gospel are to cease to exist, cease to know, think, and feel when they die,
or if they exist and think and feel forever in hell, are matters of too great importance
to be passed by without receiving the most profound consideration. In this little volume will be found these momentous questions, and
all the important facts and arguments bearing upon them. It is believed
that a lesson bearing directly on the soul’s immortality cannot be found
elsewhere. When the author’s attention was called to the subject, he expected
to find it treated in some other volume, but he searched in vain. Fragments of
the subject he could find, scattered through various works, treating in the
main on other subjects, a fragment here, and a fragment there; an incidental
allusion to the subject in this volume, and a single direct argument in that,
but in no one volume could he find the subject fully and clearly discussed.
To supply this deficiency the present volume has been written, and is now
presented to the Christian Public.
. . .
I’ll cover his Biblical
arguments shortly because they are the same arguments everybody makes. But some
of his Reason-based proofs are interesting because they provide a rare glimpse
at how much Christians back then when Natural Law was still “Christian” openly
and publicly depended on the tenets of Greek philosophy – and therefore
rejected the Bible verses that say God gave animals mortal souls with the
breath of life, which made mortal men and beasts no different because both die.
. . .
We learn that Rev. Lee
didn’t even know THE BASICS because he didn’t know animals have souls.
And you saw that he still believed in the ancient pagan Greek philosophers’
theory that God gave all men Reason so they could tap into His Natural Law and
know His eternal truths without having to study the Bible.
You may be wondering why
Rev. Lee could not simply acknowledge the Biblical fact that God gave animals
souls like He did humans. This gets back to some of the problems that came up
in the Dark Ages when Averroes exposed Augustine’s “proof” as invalid. You have
to be able to think like those who try to use the Bible to prove pagan souls
are immortal and go to hell. How do they do it? They do it this way:
1. They quote Bible examples of God’s people
having immortal souls that live beyond mortal death…
2. …and then they use those souls of God’s
people to “prove” pagans also have immortal souls because God
gave pagans souls, too!
Did you catch it? If Rev. Lee admitted that God
gave animals souls like the Bible says He did, it would expose the
traditional – and only – “Biblical proof” that pagans have immortal souls as
specious! For example, let’s reuse the above traditional “proof” – only
let’s apply it to animals:
1. They quote Bible examples of God’s people
having immortal souls that live beyond mortal death…
2. …and then they use those souls of God’s
people to “prove” animals also have immortal souls because God
gave animals souls, too!
That is why Albertus Magnus wisely decided
not to use sola Scriptura to prove the immortality of souls; if he used
Biblical examples – all of which involve God’s people – to conclude pagan
souls are immortal, he’d also have to conclude animal souls are immortal
because the Bible says animals also have souls and the breath of life!
That is why I said on page H7-8 that Albertus was in
quite a pickle.
And that is why, when Thomas Aquinas looked into the issue, he decided
to keep his intelligent mouth shut.
And that is why Rev. Lee could not admit animals have souls – he had
just finished using 36 pages of Biblical examples to prove God’s people have
immortal souls – therefore pagans do, too, because they also have God-given
souls. I say again, the reason Rev. Lee and Albertus
Magnus and all other serious-minded Bible scholars have never been able to
prove heathen and/or animal immortality is there are no Biblical examples of
the souls of animals or pagans living beyond the grave, and the fact that the
souls of God’s people live beyond the grave cannot be used to prove the
souls of animals and pagans do, too. The reason there are no examples of
animals or pagans going to heaven or hell in the Bible is because they
don’t, indeed, they can’t!
Promoting Bible study over theology because of the truth, the authority, and the necessity of the Bible. |