Jews have always been hated just because they are Jews! Jerusalem – the
foundation of peace – has never had peace. Unknown to many, righteous people
are all chosen by God - Jew or Gentile. 605 Since the Jews were
wrong about Jesus, were they really chosen people? The righteous were not wrong
about him but those less enlightened were! Note that Abraham was in Heaven.
That is because he trusted Jesus who provided the sacrfice so that he need not!
606 Abraham was enlightened because the Word spoke to him. We know
his words from Scripture but what people miss, is that the Word who spoke to
Abraham was the Voice of pre-incarnate Jesus. Abraham went to heaven because he
trusted Jesus long before it was in vogue to do so!
Enlightenment is the born-again experience. 607 When it occurs
to a person that he or she is powerless to save themselves but Jesus can, that
is crowning in the spiritual womb. Suddenly, the reborn creature emerges from
the darkness of the maternal cave, the mind emerges from the cloudy amniotic
fluid, and suddenly is immersed in Light as the spiritual eyes take a peek at
truth! The water and the blood are much more than the by-products of birth but
the produce of the Savior! 608 609
True enlightenment is realizing the truth. What is truth? That’s the
question philosophers have always asked! God’s Word is truth. 610
Recently a young woman challenged me by saying, “over the years the Bible has
changed.” That infers, the Bible – God’s Word has changed. Of course, I advised
her that the Bible has never changed but new versions have because language is
fluent and inexact. The Bible was written primarily in Hebrew (the Old
Testament) and Greek (the New Testament). The latter is called the textus receptus – Latin for “the
received text”. 611 In their wisdom the Romans accepted the Greek
language as the received text. Greek was the common (koine) language at the time. How was the text received? By divine
inspiration! 612
Failure to accept the textus
receptus is a rejection of God’s claim. In fact, it is rejection of Jesus –
God Himself - because he is the Word! (Note: I struggle with capitalizing
personal pronouns referencing Jesus because technically since He is God they
should be!)
Enlightenment, then, is discerning how the Word applies to the
individual. Everyone desires eternal life providing it is blissful. Many
forsake that because of pride. They must be right! If men are right about God’s
non-existence, then He must not exist. How wrong they are thinking their
thoughts control God’s Existence. That is prideful. Prideful people refuse to
believe in Heaven or Hell because their existence cannot be proven. The concept
of faith cannot be operationalized, so skeptics reject faith in God as
efficacious for salvation.
Hell is an abstract concept that skeptics believe was created by man so
as to avoid punishment. Salvation would not exist if it wasn’t for Hell because
Hell is from what Christians are saved! If skeptics deny Hell, then there is no
need for salvation. Since mankind enjoys pleasure, Heaven is more believable.
However, with Hell there is no need for Heaven! That is where Christians go
when they are saved from Hell. Denial that the unseen isn’t real does not make
it less real!
People desire not to believe. Unbelief is the way they perceive they will
escape Hell. Enlightenment is when one comes to realize that unbelief does not
make Heaven or Hell less real. Thus, the enlightened person desires to belief
that Hell is for real so Heaven must be as well. Ironically, people are
born-again to be saved. Because they are their own perceived gods, the Great
God must come to their aid. For instance, the Herrin god is powerless to save
Larry. Therefore, I sacrifice my own god – me – for the One True God – Jehovah,
called Jesus. Salvation is a contest between two gods; the real one and
the fictional god we create in our heads. Failure to submit our weak gods to
God is darkness. Prideful people prefer to remain in the dark instead of bowing
to the Light who is God.
The
Enlightenment -The Age of Reason:
Humanists stole enlightenment
from God! “The Enlightenment”, also known as “The Age of Reason” dominated
Europe and the western world in the eighteenth century. That period was “The
Century of Philosophy”. 613 When and where was “reason” first
introduced? In the midst of the Garden when Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of the
Knowledge of Good and Evil. The fruit thereof was to make one wise. 614
Not by coincidence, philosophy is “the love knowledge; pursuit of wisdom” 615
The Enlightenment was a change in where people stood. The Church was the source
of wisdom up until that time in the western world. The scholars again, as Adam,
stood under the forbidden tree rather than the Tree of Life. God, in His
jealousy, was killed all over again! The movers and shakers dimmed God’s Light
in favor of their own!
The Age of Reason was when all
mankind with the exception of a few, stood under the forbidden tree eating the
fruit thereof. Endowed with wisdom, as their forebears were warned, they would surely die! Mankind ate of wisdom, and didn’t die, so they
began to believe more until now philosophy takes precedence over faith. To the
world faith is foolishness because of their own self=perceived brilliance.
Scripture urges mankind to seek
wisdom, 616 so what is the problem with wisdom? The wisdom from
above – God is pure and beneficial. 617 The Book of Proverbs is wisdom literature and is advice from the very
finger of God. On the other hand, worldly wisdom is of a different flavor: 618
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.
Mankind accepts the ideas of man
over the truth of God. Unfortunately, the Catholic Church neglected truth for
quite some time in many instances. Following suit, the Anglicans did as well: Isaac Newton was a heretic 619 in
an age where heresy was threshed out by death. Before him Galileo Galilei who both had
theories on falling bodies. Although their theories proved true, the Church
rejected their findings because of the novelty of the ideas, not that what they
believed about physics was ungodly; 620 they merely discovered God’s
Laws of Physics! On the other hand, in private, according to Snobelen in the
source material, on the sly, Newton did have unnamed heretical ideas. Guess
what? We all do!
Again, orthodoxy is right doctrine . On the other hand,
non-orthodoxy is wrong doctrine and
is heretical. In my twenties, I failed to correctly
understand the nature of God – that
he is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Because that concept is essential doctrine,
even I was a heretic! Many Christians are heretical because of certain
misconceptions. Because no one person has pure divine revelations because of
spiritual limitations, we all are heretics with regard to some things.
It’s important to realize that
science, philosophy, anthropology, nor psychology is all bad. The problem lies
in what’s wrong more than what is right. All those “ologies” place the
knowledge of man supreme to the knowledge of God. Because they are seemingly
correct in so many areas, most of their doctrine is accepted even when
contradictory to divine truth. Seemingly enlightened men, rather than having
cognitive dissonance, decided to serve another master. Many, such as Newton,
were still faithful churchgoers but inside they were filled with doubt. Doubt
kills the notion of God. Imagine the inner conflict as “enlightened” Christians
sorted out the dualism in their minds! Modern man must do that even to a
greater extent because academia has fallen for the lie of false enlightenment!
There are many cases where Holy
Scripture and sacred writings reveal scientific knowledge thousands of years
before the enlightenment: (1) that the earth is spherical, 622 (2) evaporation; (3) the hydrological cycle, 623,
(4) world geography 624, and (5) astronomy. 625 Thus,
intelligent men discovered what God created. The misappropriation of that is
the problem; either seeking spiritually dangerous knowledge or denying God’s
work. For instance, astrology is misuse of astronomy. Rather than the wisdom of
God, in Babel, as people still do, they seek wisdom from the cosmos. 626
Astrology is a combination of
philosophy and astronomy (science). Because of that, astrology is a false
religion because it seeks wisdom elsewhere from God. Rather than looking to God
for answers to the questions of life, it looks to the unknown; that unknown god
of whom Paul spoke. For those who demand super-enlightenment they turn to the
stars. The space age is a continuation of the enlightenment. Mankind doesn’t
look to the stars strictly for advice but to refute God by searching for
extraterrestrial life. If it is found, what results? God did not create life;
it evolved. The space age brought many benefits but its search for life has
raised many doubts about God. The very idea that mankind is searching for life
elsewhere, is a confession of doubt! It is heretical because all scripture is
mankind, world, and heaven focused.
The enlightenment caused people
to question God. Evolution, coming from freedom from Church constraints,
resulted from the enlightenment. Of course, in his time, Darwin never
questioned the origins of the universe but the theory of evolution led to that. The Bible is the source not only
from whence matter came but the void in which it was placed. 627
Science is still working on the source of the matter with no attempt to explain
the void! The notion of evolved or created void is stupendous. How could
anything even exist before void? What “substance” could lack of void be? My
answer to that is Jehovah speaking His Word – Jesus - all alone in existence!
With unlimited freedom even from
the Church to explore man’s notions, the world and even the Church has become
more heretical. Evolution has been nicely synthesized with the divine plan and
the notion of a Creator effectually killed. The modern God of the
Laodicean-type Church is a weakened demigod subservient to the unknown god of
enlightened people! Few Christians are born-again. Few even know what that
means! I believe in God is a small
step for mankind but stopping short of a converted philosophy is a giant leap
for Satan. That is half-way enlightened. The spiritual eyes are still dim-lit.
One cannot be half-safe; it’s either safe or unsafe. Most people who have never
been spiritually enlightened are not safe at all; their salvation is a fantasy
no better than Newton, proclaiming faith but doubting God.
It is heretical that rebirth is
spiritual enlightenment but the world chose that to mock. The enlightenment put
the world more in spiritual darkness! How can scientists even believe in God?
How can they believe in creationism? Because science will never provide and
answer but Scripture has! One reason I believe in a Creator is because the
physical laws and the science of probability support God’s premise. That is
enlightenment! Self-enlightened people kill
the notion of a Savior God.
605 Holy Bible 1 Pet 2:9.
606
ibid; Gen 22:8.
607
ibid; John 3:21.
608
ibid; John 19:34.
609
ibid; 1 John 5:5-7.
610
ibid; Psalm 119:160.
611
Wikipedia; “textus receptus”.
612
Holy Bible; 1 Tim 3:16.
613
Wikipedia; “Age of Enlightenment”.
614
Holy Bible; Gen 3:6.
616
Holy Bible; James 1:5.
617
ibid; James 3:17.
618
ibid; Col 2:8.
619
British Journal for the History of
Science; “Isaac Newton, heretic: the strategies of a Nicodeite”; Snobelen, Stephen
D.; Dec 1, 1999.
620
Wikipedia; “Galileo Gallilei”.
621
Holy Bible; Isa 40:22.
622
ibid; Job 36:27.
623
ibid; Isa 55:12
624
ibid; Isa 40:12
625
Secrets of Enoch (numerous chapters).
626
Holy Bible; Gen 11.
627
ibid; Gen 1.
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