In various
other ancient times the Church has been under attack. Neglecting all the
battles that the Hebrew people lost because of their own iniquity, mostly the
losses were spiritual in nature. The well-known examples dealt with pleasure.
After the Abrahamic Covenant, the newly revived Church was weak. Because of
it’s wealth, it split off into two branches, or what is now called denominations.
Abraham stayed safely away in the country while his brother,
Lot, went to the cities with his line.
There were twin cities below and outside the Promised Land – Sodom and
Gomorrah. 305 Similar to Seth and his people, Lot looked at the
cities and desired what they had. In a short time to angels in the appearance
of men arrived at the gate of Sodom to visit Lot. Why did they visit? Perhaps
to test that portion of the Church who were living in sin.
Soon all the men of the city
came demanding to have sex with these two attractive “men”. Lot even offered
his daughters but to no avail. Those
seeking the angels were smote blind but even on their blindness they sought pleasure
with the men. The Lord offered to Lot reprieve. Any he could find would be
saved from this wickedness as he destroyed the city. Only Lot, his wife, and
two daughters were saved. The Lord had said, “don’t look back.” Lot’s wife did
and was turned into a pillar of salt. She had still desired the iniquity from
which she had been safe! Memories are the enemy of all Christians because the
mind can recall pleasure more easily than pain or punishment; those things
everyone wishes to forget.
Types of sin have been mentioned
previously. It’s not the actual sin which God abhors so much but the
willingness to go against His will for personal satisfaction. If our own will
is more important than God’s, that elevates oneself to godhood. That is
blasphemy even if one has not denied God. Sodom blasphemed. Lot’s seed there
chose pleasure over righteousness. They were in the world enjoying the fleshly
pleasures, and gradually came to serve their own master – themselves. Lot’s
wife liked that and was turned into a pillar of salt. It is believed that the
twin cities are dead – beneath the sea of salt – the Dead Sea.
One tactic of Satan is any
person can accept conflicting thoughts. George Orwell introduced the notion of doublethink - holding conflicting ideas
simultaneously. His words are worth repeating verbatim: 306
To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete
truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously
two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and
believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality
while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the
Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to
forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was
needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same
process to the process itself—that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to
induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act
of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the
word—doublethink—involved the use of doublethink.
Marxism uses this tactic, which
was at time called “creeping socialism”, offering one minor change in thought
at a time until the new thought is accepted. Marx’s plan was to grow the state
while at the same time destroying its institutions – the notion of empowering
and weakening at the same time. He referred to it as the withering away of the state. 307 Before Marx used that
deception for the destruction of the existent state, and replacement with a
dictatorship, Satan used the same tactic for the withering away of the Church –
slow but sure – and a new dictatorship where he is to become “god” himself. 308
Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of
those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good
News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the
exact likeness of God.
The process Satan uses is withering away of Church, and his method is
doublethink. Satan, to be god of this world, must begin with mankind serving
two masters. 309 At first, he allays his pride long enough to accept
that, but in the end, Satan will demand that only he be served – as the
antichrist. Christians will be required to take his mark or be beheaded. 310
Satan, right now is content with doublethink – what scripture calls blinding the minds of those who don’t believe.
A better translation is of those who don’t
trust God to be their only God. Israel’s sin throughout patriarchal times
was not disbelieving in God but accepting other gods in His face. Generally,
this came about by marrying foreign wives who were pagans as even King Solomon
did. 311 The “Kingdom of
David” was the Church in those days. Solomon started the withering away of the
Church, and throughout the times of the kings, each one would wither it more with
the exception of those who were faithful to God. Withering away is a gradual
process. It’s similar to a downward trending cosine wave whose amplitude is greater
with each cycle.
Their doublethink was believing
that they could actually serve two gods. A “god” is one being who created one
existence. Having the thought that there could even be two gods is doublethink
and is irrational. Believing in God, and that He is not Creator is doublethink.
Even most Christians doublethink, or think irrationally, about that conflict of
ideas. In essence, Christians who accept evolution have two gods: Jehovah and
Chance. Since Chance is a product of faulty thinking, then it is mankind who
are their own gods. Satan is happy with that for the moment but in the end will
express his own godhood. Having the irrational notion of multiple gods, and
accepting them as such, is called syncretism.
God forbade syncretism with the first commandment: “thou shalt not have
other gods besides me”. That includes ourselves and/or Satan. Mankind’s “gods”
do what is right in their own eyes rather than God’s will. That is the law of
sin, and its author is Satan. Actually, the law of sin is not written but
opposes what is – the Law of God. God wrote the Law so that mankind was without
excuse. Satan didn’t write his down so that mankind has an excuse! God
commented on that before He died. 312
God was killed because His people were ignorant. As with any lawbreaker, the
court demands that he must know the law. In civil court, ignorance does not vindicate.
In the Supreme Court of God, ignorance is not a valid reason for sinning! The Law
was written for that very reason – that mankind should know that they are
sinners. 313 That knowledge takes away all the excuses. Thus,
knowledge of the Law, is conviction that mankind sins. The Law leads to conviction, repentance, and
forgiveness!
Secular ideologies were created by Satan to kill the Church. (More on
that later). When the “Kingdom of David” was given to the Israelites by God
Himself, it became the Church. David built the altar on the threshing floor of
Ornan and that same place became the Temple. Using simile, the Promised Land is
representative of God’s Kingdom of earth. As such, the Law of God was the rule.
A theocracy was set up by God: the Israelites were the congregation, the King
its ruler, the High Priest the emissary to God who held sway over the king, and
God was Supreme. The High Priest was overseer of the souls, and the King their
judge. This Church had somewhat of an episcopal order to it. Of course,
scripture seems to provide the place of the first sin, as the same location of
the Church. It is poetic justice that God would cancel out mankind’s sin where
it originated! He went to the source of the problem.
The threshing floor was to become the place of the church – the building
itself. However, from the time of Moses to Solomon’s Temple, the Church had not
building, God and no need of one, and still doesn’t. Why so? Because the Temple of God lies within the
souls of all Christians. 314 The soul of Christians is the container
for God’s (The Existence’s) Holy Spirit just as the void is the container for
all existence. At this moment existence is corrupted, as is the souls of
mankind. Before, the Holy Spirit comes in, God cleans house with the filth inside
the soul!
People think of the Holy Spirit coming with the appearance of God on
earth. God was always on earth and in the heavens for that matter and filled
the souls of the patriarchs. David, a grievous sinner had the Holy Spirit but
yet he sinned! 315 Having God’s
Spirit is safety, not perfection.
Psalm 51 is David’s repentance, and that revived the Church – the nation of Israel.
David was much like Moses. They both restored the Church, and both of
them were murderers. It’s not surprising that years later God would choose
another murderer to be his zealot. Moses established the Church again. Millions
of Israelites lived in sin – doing in Egypt what the Egyptians did. Neglecting God
entirely, they fornicated with other gods. Egypt is scripture is symbolic of
sin and the Pharoah is the simile of the devil. The Exodus is representative of
salvation, and the water and the blood are similes of God’s death. 316
In other words, he was the Word who spoke to Moses, and God’s Spirit which
killed the firstborn, protected the Jews, and parted the waters. However, after
the Hebrew people were safe, they did not yet live for God. In the wilderness,
the Church was just starting to be formed.
All those who had lived in sin in Egypt had to die out. God accomplished
that by insisting that the Hebrew people wander in the desert for forty-years.
Even Moses was not allowed in to “paradise” because he continued in sin by striking
the rock, not as directed, but in his own manner. The wilderness, at that time,
was the threshing floor. God Himself led the Hebrew people out of sin – the wilderness
– into paradise – the land of milk and honey. Pharoah had destroyed the Church
and Moses, led by God, resurrected it. Satan lost again. Joshua – symbolic of
Jesus – brought them into the Promised Land years after God promised it to
Abraham! Thus, in Egypt, the Church almost died, withered in the wilderness,
but restored in the Promised Land. God will never give up His Church!
When God appears to mankind, it is always as the Messiah – or Christ
before God was called that! Moses
followed the Word out of the wilderness who appeared as a cloud by day, and bright
light by night. Although God appeared differently He was no less the Word than
when He was made flesh. For those who fail to grasp this, Moses followed God
before He was incarnated. The Word years later was made flesh. 317
This all started when God “had Church” with Moses on the Holy Mountain of
Sinai. Moses was threshed heartily by God who judged him harshly then by grace led
Him in His Way. On that mountain years before God was ever born, He spoke in
the human language to Moses, and wrote His Word down on stone to endure
forever. God thought it worthy of His presence to keep Himself alive by appearing
to Moses as a burning bush; ironically by the same method he appeared to the
early Church in Jerusalem! 318 On Sinai, God spoke to mankind
through fire. Years later He spoke to mankind the same way. Both Moses and the
disciples understood probably the same language!
305 Holy Bible; Gen 19
306 Orwell, George (1949). Nineteen
Eighty-Four. Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd, London, part 1, chapter 3, pp
32.
307 Address to the 16th Congress of the
Russian Communist Party (1930) Quoted in: Alfred B. Evans, Soviet
Marxism-Leninism: The Decline of an Ideology; pg. 39.
308 Holy Bible; 2 Cor 4:4
309 ibid; Mat 6:24
310 ibid; Rev 20:4
311 ibid; Neh 13:26
312 ibid; Luke 22:34
313 ibid; Rom 3:19-20
314 ibid; 1 Cor 6:19-20
315 ibid; 1 Sam 16:13
316 ibid; Exodus
317 ibid; John 1-2, 14
318 ibid; Acts 2:2-4
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