Killing God - Part 5 The Victim (cont)

(Continuation of the Victim)

Paul quickly saw that the Stoics and Epicureans worshiped a god but he proclaimed to them the identity of their “unknown god”. Just as the cartoon character Pogo said on earth day 1970, “We have met the enemy, and he is us,” Paul just as well have said that! Mankind is the enemy of mankind. Their weapon is hatred for others, and their armaments are love of self!  Similarly, mankind made God the enemy of natural man, and hatred is the weapon. Not to forget the biblical definition of faith, it is imperative to continue with who killed God! Lovers of self are among the accomplices.

                Stoicism is asceticism. They denied themselves pleasure and did “good” by doing so. They were indeed sincere in their self-sacrifice but the sacrifices were made to mankind. Indeed, Stoicism is modern-day secular humanism. Of course, there is nothing evil about doing good, but if good is done for wrong reasons, it’s an insult to God. In fact, the prophet Isaiah, inspired by God, relegated works as equivalent to “filthy rags” in God’s sight. ⁷⁸ Likewise, Jesus ostracized the sect of the Pharisees and the scribes by referring to them as vipers and compared them to the serpent. ⁷⁹ That sect was known for its close adherence to the Laws of God. Of course, done to magnify themselves rather than God!

The other group was the Epicureans. Paul knew their god, and it was them! Those philosophers lived for pleasure. As the Stoics appeased their “gods” with self-sacrifice, the Epicureans appeased their gods by sensory enjoyments from food, drink, entertainment to prestige and licentiousness. They were truly imbibers of the flesh. One group killed Jesus ironically by doing good works without magnifying God, and the other crucifying God for the sake of pleasure. Both groups were poisoned by the fruits of the forbidden tree, whose fruits were not only for pleasure but for reason as well. The Stoics used reason and logic in worshiping themselves.

God is not illogical but false knowledge and theory does not impress Him at all. Theory is merely testing hunches. Brilliant people can bias the test to validate their hunches. Thus, most theories are weapons of destruction. God is saddened by acceptance of such theories over truth!

Returning now to the definition of faith, the next key word in the definition is “evidence”. Evidence is the portion of the body of knowledge which supports truth. The entire field of philosophy is based on answering the question, “What is truth?”  Well, the Lord is “the God of Truth” ⁸⁰ Hence is Word is Truth ⁸¹ What is another motive for killing God? He speaks the truth! That wouldn’t be so bad if people wanted to hear the truth, but they prefer the tickling of the ears! ⁸² That’s many; even Christians ignore the truth.  The bad part is that since the truth has set mankind free, many Christians are still accomplices in killing God! ⁸³

Faith requires evidence, and the evidence must be truthful. Denial of the truth is a poison which infuriates God. Yes, we are to love and fear God! He forgives as long as some contrition is felt, but when hearts are hardened to the extent that apathy atrophies it such that circumcision is impossible, then vengeance becomes His.  People kill God by rejecting His grace. Some submit because they fear God’s retribution. Others resent God for being just and are His enemies. That is “blasphemy” – revering their own selves as they fail to revere God. Atheism is the ultimate blasphemy as they reject the Creator and Savior God. Half-way does not count! If God cannot create for us a place in Eden, how could He prepare us a place of the heavenly Garden? Christians know God is Almighty, agnostics doubt it, and atheists reject it.  Babes in Christ don’t understand it, and unrighteous Christians are syncretic – believing in science and the Divinity but with science reigning.

The next part of the definition of “faith” is “things unseen”. Living in a physical world we think of “things” as material entities which science calls “matter”.  Their “Big Bang” is matter-focused and from the conversion of energy. Even to the Christian, that sounds about right, and the Higg’s Boson – the cosmic fluid from that bang, seems tenable, but credit is not given to whom its due. The Big Bang took time, some say infinite, for existence to evolve. As God created a mature man, He created a mature cosmos. God’s time is not our time. He knew that we needed time for our own convenience but He himself scoffs at that! ⁸⁴ Hence, people deny God because they just can’t understand time!

What people do understand is limited time. It seems that man’s longevity is limited to one-hundred twenty years. The limitation is two-fold: the sun who some worship and man’s pump assuming that people don’t kill themselves by depression or poor dietary habits. The sun measures our time, and the heartbeat counts out the minutes. Because, we indeed, will die, people are apathetic to its passing or dread the end of our timepieces ticking. God, of course, gets the blame because man is not immortal when clearly, it’s our own folly!  Mankind killed itself but still blame God. How many times have we heard the question, “If there is a God, why did He allow her to die?’ The answer is, because mankind chose death, and God allowed Satan to administer death.

People resent God because of the inevitability of death. He forgives us seventy-times seven ⁸⁵ but most still elect death rather than submission. People kill themselves for the love of pleasure and blame God who hates what they pleasure!

There are two types of death: (1) when the flesh dies, and (2) when the soul dies. The first death is frightening but most seem not to fear the second death! That is ironic because the first death is fleeting but the second death is eternal – eternally dying – because it is never-ending. God gets the blame for both the first and second death. The first is the consequence of original sin and is brief. The latter is the consequence of our personal unrepented sin and is our choice! Still, sinners blame God, not only for death, but for their fear of death. Many say, “A loving God would not send his children to hell!” That is wrong in two respects: (1) people choose Hell, and (2) those who go to Hell are offspring of the devil. ⁸⁶

Faith is about “things”. The physical things which we fear ae in the world and the universe. Faith is also believing in things that can’t be seen. We believe in black holes and the expanding universe, not because we see them, but because astronomers claim they can, although their sight is limited by instrumentation and confounds in the cosmos. Most accept their theories even though they can’t see what they see!

Sacred writings indicate that Adam and Eve had “bright eyes” while in the Garden. They at that time could see into the heavens! ⁸⁷ They could see the angels and God because of their “bright nature” – the Designers Intent. Sin did not cloud their vision, and they loved God because they saw Him clearly! They easily saw the things which are unseen to us. Because they saw God and spoke with Him, we can see God through eyes of faith. We see God by the Word which He spoke to the patriarchs! Those words were written down and are Holy Scripture – the inspired Word of God, and not of man. To have faith in God we must see Him through His Word. The Word provides bright natures and bright eyes to heretofore eyes blind to the unseen, and skeptic natures of the blind.

Those who see God’s face are warned that they would die. ⁸⁸ Moses specifically who could look on his countenance but not right at Him. People on the whole deny God because they cannot see Him. Strangely, because they are poor of spiritual sight, they attempt to kill Whom they cannot see! God cannot be measured as unseen existence cannot be detected by the five senses. The Word gives mankind another sense, – faith – the ability to see the unseen!  The world thinks we’re crazy for seeing God but remember, God is manifested in the creation!

Society says that hatred is due to ignorance. Christians should agree with that! On the other hand, people kill God merely because they are blind to His Existence.

⁷⁸ ibid, Isa 64:6

⁷⁹ ibid; Mat 23:32

⁸⁰ ibid; Psalm 31:5

⁸¹ ibid; John 1:4

⁸² ibid; 2 Tim 4:3

⁸³ ibid; John 8:33

⁸⁴ ibid^; Psalm 90:4

⁸⁵ ibid; Mat 18:22

⁸⁶ ibid; John 8:44

⁸⁷ Adam and Eve VIII:1

⁸⁸ Holy Bible; Exod 33:20