The Final Wars
Revelation 19:11-21 Revelation 16:13-16 Revelation 20:1-10 Joel 3:20 Joel 3:9-16 Joel 2:1 Zechariah chapter 14 Amos 9:11 II Thessalonians 2:4
Contrary to popular opinion, the battle of Armageddon will not be the end of the world or even the end of evil. The purpose of the battle will be that the Jewish Messiah, who is the Lord Jesus, will return to earth from heaven to rescue the nation of Israel from an invasion by an evil army led by the Anti-Christ. The Lord will bring His church with Him when He comes because He will have already Raptured them to heaven prior to the Great Tribulation that will precede His second coming.
Jesus will come to earth in the air and Rapture His church, and then the Tribulation period will begin and last seven years. In the middle of these seven years the Anti-Christ will enter the Jewish Temple that will have been rebuilt by Christ and declare himself to be the Jewish god. This act will start the second half of the seven years called the Great Tribulation. Incidentally, nowhere does the Bible teach that the Jews will rebuild the third temple, but it does teach, in several places, that Christ will rebuild His third temple.
Revelation 16:13-16 Revelation 14:9-12 Revelation 14:6-7 Revelation chapters 12 & 13 Revelation 11:3-12 Daniel 7:8 Daniel 7:15-28 Daniel 8:23-26 Daniel 11:36-45
Immediately following the Rapture of the church, the seven years period of time called The Tribulation begins. The Holy Spirit restrains the full powers of evil until God removes Him along with His church from the world. Then the powers of evil will be fully unleashed and horrible wars, including nuclear wars, will begin along with famine and all the terrible suffering that results from these horrors. At this time, ten evil leaders will control ten centers of power and these will be fighting each other to gain control of the wealth of the world for themselves and their cronies. These wars will continue for three and one half years with heavy casualties, but when the sixth seal is opened in heaven, God and His Son will reveal Themselves to the whole world and the wars will temporarily stop while men try desperately to hide themselves from the face of the Holy God. Read Revelation 6:12-17. Revelation 6:9-11 reveals that even during this horrible time, some people will realize that the Rapture was real and they will cling to faith in God's Word even without the aid of the Holy Spirit. These believers will be slaughtered by the evil forces, but their souls will be honored when they reach heaven.
At this time, all faith will be in danger of being completely extinguished from the earth, but when God reveals Himself to the world, He will establish special enclaves of safety that will provide special protections for His people. He will establish the first of these enclaves in the nation of Israel where Christ will convert 144 thousand Jews to His service. These believers will continue to preach the gospel to the world during the time that the evil men are trying to hide from the face of God, and all of the Jews and Gentiles who believe their gospel will receive a seal in their foreheads indicating that they belong to God. As Revelation 7:9-17 records, many of these saved and sealed Jews and Gentiles will be martyred during the Great Tribulation and their souls will be honored in heaven. Verse fourteen is especially significant because it reveals that these martyrs will not be washed in the blood of Jesus until they get to heaven which also shows that the Holy Spirit is not in the world to wash these believers in Jesus' blood when they believe, but the seal in their foreheads separate them as God's people.
Revelation 8:1 reveals that the silence in heaven that follows the opening of the seventh seal marks the end of the brief reprieve in the Tribulation in which God established enclaves for His people. The Great Tribulation then follows this reprieve.
Chapter nine of Revelation records the beginning of the wars of the Great Tribulation, but these wars will be quite different from the wars of the first three and one half years of the Tribulation period. These wars begin with the sound of the fifth trumpet in which a "star" that falls from heaven to earth opens a place called "the bottomless pit" and hordes of demons are released on the earth, not to kill, but to torment all people who have not received the seal of God in their foreheads. Apparently, the purpose of this torment is to force these people to accept the leadership of the "angel" of the bottomless pit who is none other than the beast, or Anti-Christ. The sound of the sixth trumpet announces that the released demons will succeed in forcing millions of humans to become demon possessed and these armies will then begin to attack God's enclaves and kill many of God's people.
Revelation 10:1-7 reveals that a "mighty angel" descends from heaven and puts his right foot upon the sea and his left foot on the earth. This act symbolizes God's reassurance that even during the worst of the Great Tribulation, God still retains control over the history of the world, of the earth and of the sea. This angel also announces that when the seventh trumpet sounds, God will triumph over evil and time will be finished. No doubt, the visitation of this angel will greatly boost the morale of God's people defending the enclaves.
In the second part of this chapter, this same angel gives the Apostle John a "little book" and tells him to eat it up. This "little book" symbolizes the Word of God. It tastes sweet to John because it saves millions, but it becomes bitter in his stomach because it also judges and destroys millions. This angel then prophesies to John that in the future he will preach the Word of God in God's enclaves to convince people to receive the seal of God in their foreheads. This may also be the same prophecy that Jesus gave to Peter when He said of John: "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me." John 21:22.
The internecine wars of evil against evil that Revelation often relates, are caused by man's obsession with greed and power. God allows and even encourages these wars because they assist Him in destroying Satan's kingdom. When God uses false systems to destroy other false systems, then good systems result. These good systems effect the diminution of evil systems while at the same time sparing the lives of millions of God's people. God demonstrated His use of this tactic many times in His Word. In WWII, God caused the Nazis to war against the Communists in order to diminish both and also to spare the lives of millions of good people. Jesus prophesied about God's use of this tactic in Matthew 12:25-26.
In Revelation 11:1-2, the angel gives the Apostle John a reed and tells him to measure the temple with it. This instruction shows that the third temple exists in Jerusalem at this time. Nowhere does the Bible teach that the third temple will be built by the Jews. Everywhere that the Bible mentions the third temple, it always relates that it will be built by God Himself. Read Amos 9:11, Zechariah 6:12-13 and Acts 15:16.
Revelation 11:3-12 tells the story of God's two witnesses who will preach in Jerusalem throughout the first half of the Tribulation period. God will give these two witnesses special powers to protect them from the evil forces. But when the Great Tribulation starts the "beast" will attack and take Jerusalem and will kill these two witnesses. Their bodies will lie in the street for three and a half days while the evil forces rejoice over their deaths. But their joy will be turned to fear when God resurrects these two witnesses and they ascend to heaven in the sight of God's enemies.
Revelation 11:13-14 records that God will then send a great earthquake to Jerusalem that will kill seven thousand men. Even God's remnant whom He will be protecting within an enclave near Jerusalem will be frightened by this earthquake. Yet, this remnant will give glory to God for this encouragement and reminder that God is still fighting His enemies.
In Revelation 11:15-19, the Apostle John records a scene in heaven when God has His angel sound the seventh trumpet. All of heaven rejoices at this sound for with it God promises all of His people in heaven and in the enclaves on earth that at the end of the seven years of Tribulation, He will triumph over all evil and He will reign on the earth. All of God's people in heaven and on earth will hear this seventh trumpet and will know what it means.
Revelation chapter 12 reheares the spiritual history of Israel, symbolized by the "woman who brings forth the man child." The "woman" stands for the nation of Israel from the time it was but an idea in the mind of God, and the "man child" stands for Jesus, Israel's Messiah. The war began in heaven when Lucifer tried to destroy God who is also the Messiah. The war continued on earth where Satan has tried mightly throughtout history to prevent the Messiah from coming by attempting to destroy Israel, and by trying to destroy the Messiah when He did come. As this war continues, verse six prophesies that God will provide an enclave during the Great Tribulation for the remnant of Israel who have received His seal in their foreheads. Verse fourteen records that this enclave will be in the "wilderness" near Jerusalem and that God will provide everything His people will need for their protection and nourishment. Satan will attempt to destroy this enclave with a flood of water, perhaps by damming the Jordan river and then breaking this dam. But God will protect His people by opening the earth which will swallow the flood. Satan's failure will enrage him and he will return to launching military attacks against God's enclave, and succeed in causing heavy casualties, but he will not destroy God's enclave.
Revelation chapter thirteen records the prophecies of the "beast" that comes out of the "sea," and the "beast" that comes out of the "earth." When the fifth trumpet sounds, then the "bottomless pit" will be opened and huge armies of demons will be released to the earth. The king of these demons will have a name which can be interpreted as "The Destroyer." As Revelation 20:13 reveals, Hell has three compartments, namely "the sea," "death" and "hell." This means that the "bottomless pit" and "the sea" is the same place, and that "the Destroyer" and "the beast" is the same person. This beast who rises from the sea will have seven heads and ten horns. The seven heads symbolize the seven years of the Tribulation period, and the ten horns symbolize the fact that the Destroyer will use his hordes of demon armies to gain control over the ten powers that will rule the earth during the first half of the Tribulation period. The "Dragon," which is another name for Satan himself, will give his power to the beast. One of his seven heads will be wounded to death but then will be healed. This charade consists of nothing but a false death and resurrection. The beast presents this farce in order to pretend to the world that he is the Messiah of the Jews. The beast will know that many of the Jews have already turned to faith in the true Messiah, and that many in the world will know that these believers are living in God's enclaves. For these reasons, he must pretend to be the Messiah in order to get the world to put its faith in him. Revelation 13:6 records the same act by the beast as that revealed in II Thessalonians 2:4. He will enter into the temple of God and claim that he is Messiah and God, and will blaspheme the true God and Messiah. Verse seven relates that God will allow the beast "to make war against the saints, and to overcome them." This means that he will launch vicious attacks against God's enclaves which will cause a great number of casualties among the saints, but verse eight also records that all the world will worship the beast except those whose names are written in the book of life of the Lamb. This shows that the beast will not succeed in destroying God's enclaves. Verse eight records that the "patience and faith of the saints" will finally result in the total destruction of evil.
In Revelation 13:11-18, the story changes from that of the first beast who came out of the sea to that of "another beast" who comes out of "the earth." This second beast will come from that compartment of Hell filled with fire and brimstone to replace the first beast. The Bible gives no exact reason why this happens. A speculative reason lies in verse fifteen where the second beast creates an image of the first beast which he causes the world to worship. This would seem to indicate that perhaps the first beast becomes disabled by his deadly wound and thus will not be able to continue as the evil leader. This condition will require the second beast to create a false image of the first beast in order to convince the world that he is still alive and well. This means that in a comical manner, the first beast will so bungle his own pretended death and resurrection that the Devil will have to send a second beast to create a farcical image of the first beast as being resurrected. But this charade only reveals to God's people the utter absurdity of the false resurrection. In verses 16-18, the second beast creates his own answer for the seal of God in the foreheads of His believers. The second beast forces all men under his control to receive a mark in their foreheads or right hands which will separate them forever from God's people. The second beast's order that no one will be allowed to buy or sell except those who have this mark will have the intent of forcing any of God's people who may be secretly living among them into the open so they can be killed. The Bible supplies the number of this mark as 666 so that God's future people will be able immediately to identify their enemies. God will not allow Satan to use any other number.
Revelation 14:1-5 relates that at the beginning of the Great Tribulation, Jesus will stand on Mount Zion and reveal Himself to the 144 thousand converted Jews residing in His protected enclave near Jerusalem. His revelation will result in a tremendous worship service with heaven and the enclave joining together to sing praises to God and His Messiah. The purpose of this great worship service will be to encourage God's remnant to endure the horrible attacks that will be coming at them from the beast's armies. Zechariah 14:1-7 prophesies about the beast's attack on Jerusalem, and how he will take it, and how the Messiah will visit His people and open a great valley for the protection of His remnant who will flee into it when He splits the Mount of Olives. Verses six and seven prophesy that perhaps Jesus will cover this valley with an impenetrable dome which will be lighted by some type of artificial light. After God has secured His people within this enclave, the great worship service will begin.
At this time, God's people will be pinned down in their enclaves and will be unable to spread the gospel. At the same time, the beast will be forcing the people of the world to receive his mark in order to separate them from God's salvation forever. Because of God's compassion for the world's people and His desire to give them a chance to refuse the beast's mark and be saved, He will devise a new method to get the gospel to the people of the world. Revelation 14:6-7 prophesies that God will simply send an angel to preach His gospel to the world and give all people an opportunity to accept it and be saved. Most of those who accept it will be martyred by the beast, but they will certainly escape becoming completely demonic and being lost forever because they received the mark.
Revelation 14:8 relates that God will send another angel to announce to the world that "Babylon is fallen, is fallen,...." Babylon here is the symbolic name for all of the evil systems throughout the history of the world. God will be warning the world that He will conquer evil at the end of these wars, and so all people should refuse the mark and accept the gospel preached by the first angel.
Revelation 14:9-11 records that those who receive the mark of the beast will become totally demonic, and therefore, will suffer the same punishment in the lake of fire as will the demons themselves. They will be tormented in a state of full consciousness forever in order to occupy their minds so completely that they will be unable to devise any more evil. Verses 12-13 relates that those who believed the angel and were killed, will rest and await their resurrections and rewards from Christ.
Revelation 14:14-20 probably does not refer to the battle of Armageddon. These verses relate nothing about the Second Coming of Christ. These verses simply report that during all of the horrible wars of the Tribulation period, the forces of evil will also suffer tremendous casualties and that the souls of these dead will be subject to the wrath of God.
The fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of Revelation recounts that God will use seven last plagues to wage direct war from heaven on the forces of evil in order to protect His enclaves of Jewish and Christian saints. Chapter 16:13-16 reveals that the Devil will send three evil spirits to call the kings of all the evil armies all over the world to abandon their wars against the Christian enclaves and concentrate all their forces against the enclave of the Jewish saints in Jerusalem. The Devil will reason that if he can crush the Jewish enclave, then he will prevent God's prophecy that Christ will become King of the Jews and Ruler of the world from ever coming true, and thus he will defeat God and become the ruler of the world himself. Verse sixteen reveals that the Devil will call these armies to gather at Armegeddon and not at Jerursalem. This may mean that the Anti-Christ will have lost Jerusalem to a counterattack by the Jewish enclave.
Revelation, chapter seventeen, relates the destruction of a harlot woman who symbolizes apostate Christendom. This harlot will be destroyed by the ten evil kings because they will so hate the name of Christ that they will desire no remembrance of His name even if nominally held by an apostate church. Verse eighteen does compare this church to the city of Rome, but this merely constitutes a prophecy that history will show that the church of Rome will contain the most apostates who will retain a certain amount of political power over the future kings of the earth. Yet, as Jesus prophesied in Revelation 2:13 and 19, even this apostate church will contain some true believers. But most of the members of this apostate church will be but nominal Christians because they will trust in the elaborate ceremonies of this church and not in Christ Himself. Even so, God has miraculously preserved the basic elements of His gospel within the Mass, so that true believers will be washed from their sins by the blood of Jesus, even as it is hidden within these ceremonies. Those who ignore the ceremony and the supposed power of the priest to turn wine into the blood of Jesus, and who directly believe that Jesus will spiritually wash away their sins with His shed blood; these will be born into the family of God by the power of the Holy Spirit. But the church of Rome will not be the only apostate church by any means. Many apostates will reside within the various Protestant churches and some even within the Evangelical churches.
Revelation , chapter eighteen, recounts the story of the fall of Satan's economic systems in the world; with Babylon being the symbolic name for these systems. This chapter does not refer to those who practiced free enterprise in a fair and equitable way. This chapter refers to all those who were willing to use any corrupt and even violent means available to themselves or their nations in order to gain wealth and power. This chapter relates the story of those who lie, cheat and steal, and even practice war, in order to obtain wealth and power. These evil powers will witness the total collapse of their cruel systems within the short space of one hour. At this time, close to the end of the Great Tribulation, no wealth of any kind will be left in the hands of the evil powers, but they will still retain the military strength of their armies.
Revelation 19:1-10 reveals that when God allows His saints in heaven to observe the fall of apostate Christendom and the fall of Satan's evil economic systems, then tremendous rejoicing and worship will erupt in heaven. God's people will become wild with overwhelming joy and worship of God. This great worship service will culminate with the marriage of Christ to His church.
Revelation 19:11-16 describes the glorious majesty of Christ as He gathers His righteous army to lead them to victory over Satan's evil armies at the battle of Armageddon. This Second Coming of Christ will be for the purpose of rescuing converted Israel from annihilation by Satan's huge armies. The Christian enclaves will not need a direct rescue because the pressure on them will have already been releaved by the withdrawal of the evil armies that were attacking them.
Revelation 19:17-21 describes the battle of Armageddon. The principal significance of this battle will be that Christ will win it all by Himself. His army will have no need to fight at all. This action will be true to the nature of God. Just as Christians can by no means save themselves but must trust in the completed work of Christ, so Christ alone must save the nation of Israel so that their gratitude will be directed solely to Him for all eternity. His victory will cause Israel to recognize Christ as their only King forever.
Before the battle even begins, Christ will single out and seize the false prophet and the beast, probably by pulling them into the air near Him. Christ will then open and reveal the lake of fire for the evil armies to see, and will throw the beast and false prophet into it. This act will completely demoralize the evil armies and they will begin to scatter. Christ will then begin to destroy these armies, and the weapon He will use will be the Word of God. The "sword that proceeded out of His mouth" is the Word of God. "God is Love" and He will save those who trust in His Son, but the absolute purity of His Word also destroys evil, for God will not allow any trace of nastiness to remain in His universe. In Zechariah 14:12, the prophet decribes this destruction as being a total reduction of the evil armies to nothingness. This action will be quite appropriate because sin is nothing more than false combinations of God's True Ideas intended to reduce the Truth to absolute nothingness. When exposed to the powers of the Holiness of God's Word, evil must disolve into absolute nothingness. God's Word constitutes a super weapon as well as a Savior.
God told Moses in Exodus 33:20 that no man can see His face and live. By saying this, God meant that the full power of His Holiness is so awesome that no man can live who sees it. The awesome power of such an observation would completely dissolve all falsity so that only the Truth could remain. Jesus deliberately subdued His Holiness when He walked the earth, for if He had ever revealed the full power of His Holiness, He would have destroyed anyone who looked at Him. Jesus used the full power of His Holiness as a weapon against the evil armies, thus causing their complete dissolution. But this dissolution means that only the false combinations which constitute their evil is that which will be destroyed. God will recover His True Ideas that comprise these false combinations so that they can be used in future true combinations. The statement "and all fowls were filled with their flesh" symbolizes the power of the Holy Spirit to recover God's misused Ideas for His future creative purposes.
Revelation 20:1-3 reveals the significant fact that Satan will not be captured until after the battle. This shows the true character of the Devil as a complete coward who abandoned his armies and tried to save himself by hiding from God. God will send an angel to dig him out of his hiding place, and chain him in the bottomless pit during the thousand year reign of Christ on the earth. After the thousand years, Satan must be loosed for a little while to raise another evil army to fight against God in the earth's final war. The Bible nowhere explains why the Devil must be so chained and then set loose, but it must have something to do with the fact that even during the thousand year reign of Christ, evil will not be completely destroyed. Evil will only be completely destroyed when God recreates the heaven and earth and thoroughly purges His recreation from all evil. This purgation and recreation will begin when God destroys the Devil and his army at the end of the last war.
Daniel 7:8 Daniel 7:15-28 Daniel 8:23-26 Daniel 11:36-45
The book of Daniel provides additional details of the story of the beast who is also the Anti-Christ of Revelation. Daniel 7:8 and Daniel 7:15-28 relate the story of how the beast will gain power over the whole earth during the first three and one half years of the Tribulation period. At the beginning of the Tribulation period, the earth will be ruled by ten centers of power symbolized by the ten horns of Daniel and Revelation. In the beginning, the beast will be but a minor political power among the ten powers. Daniel states that he will be but a "little horn," but by the middle of the Tribulation period he will have gained power over the whole earth.
After the Rapture, the forces of evil will no longer be restrained. Wars will break out between some of these ten kings as they battle for wealth and power. At the same time, some of them will wage war against Israel and those who convert to faith in Christ.
The beast, who will be a minor politician in Israel, will become the leader of Israel by assuring the Israeli people that he can completely defeat its enemies. But his secret motive for gaining this power will be for the purpose of eventually claiming to be the Messiah and God of Israel and thus destroying the faith of Israel in its true God. The beast will then lead Israel to victory over the king of the south and the king of the north who are at war with Israel. He will do this in order to enforce his future claim that he is Israel's Messiah. These will be the three kings that Daniel reveals that the beast will subdue: Israel itself, the king of the north and the king of the south. When the beast gains direct rule over these three kings, then the other seven kings will submit to him and he will become the ruler of the world.
The beast will completely solidify his power over the earth after three and one half years. At this time he will enter the temple of God in Jerusalem and proclaim that he is God and Israel's Messiah in his attempt to replace God as the ruler of the earth. He will then unleash horrendous military attacks against the enclave of Jewish believers near Jerusalem, and he will order the other seven kings to attack the Christian enclaves scattered around the world. This condition will mark the beginning of the Great Tribulation.
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Friday, March 22, 2013
A Counter Argument Against Materialism
One of the arguments that materialist philosophers use to try to prove that material objects do not need the subjective in order to be real is that consciousness can imagine a consciousless universe in which its objects pass through time and space just the same as they would in a conscious universe.
However, such an endeavor is actually thoroughly and absolutely impossible. To begin, when one imagines a consciousless universe, one must ask oneself where the consciousless universe appears. The obvious answer is that it appears in the mind of the person imagining it. The imaginer thus immediately overcomes the absence of consciousness which he thinks he imagines, and supplies the consciouness necessary to mentally observe the movements of its objects through time and space.
One can only truly imagine a consciousless universe if one uses no imagination or observation. This endeavor is obviously self-contradictory and impossible. However, if one should exert oneself to the utmost to attempt to imagine a consciousless universe without using imagination, what would one observe? The obvious answer is that one would observe nothing. This nothingness would so completely hide all objects and movements, and even time and space; so that all one could know about the consciousless universe is absolutely nothing. This condition reveals the truth about all consciousless universes. They always equal absolute nothingness, and one can only imagine them by using an idea of nothing.
Then again, all of this speculation raises another question. If our universe was consciousless prior to the evolutionary emergence of consciousness, then how could life ever have evolved since the consciousless universe had to equal absolute nothingness? The obvious answer is that our universe has never been a consciousless one. An Infinite Consciousness must exist to supply our universe with constant creativity and reality.
However, such an endeavor is actually thoroughly and absolutely impossible. To begin, when one imagines a consciousless universe, one must ask oneself where the consciousless universe appears. The obvious answer is that it appears in the mind of the person imagining it. The imaginer thus immediately overcomes the absence of consciousness which he thinks he imagines, and supplies the consciouness necessary to mentally observe the movements of its objects through time and space.
One can only truly imagine a consciousless universe if one uses no imagination or observation. This endeavor is obviously self-contradictory and impossible. However, if one should exert oneself to the utmost to attempt to imagine a consciousless universe without using imagination, what would one observe? The obvious answer is that one would observe nothing. This nothingness would so completely hide all objects and movements, and even time and space; so that all one could know about the consciousless universe is absolutely nothing. This condition reveals the truth about all consciousless universes. They always equal absolute nothingness, and one can only imagine them by using an idea of nothing.
Then again, all of this speculation raises another question. If our universe was consciousless prior to the evolutionary emergence of consciousness, then how could life ever have evolved since the consciousless universe had to equal absolute nothingness? The obvious answer is that our universe has never been a consciousless one. An Infinite Consciousness must exist to supply our universe with constant creativity and reality.
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Consciousness in the Mirror
A mirror reflects a picture of some of the objects in a room, but the mirror cannot be aware of the picture. This shows that the material can never be aware of the material. The recognition of the picture requires a consciousness.
Yet, the materialists claim that consciousness consists of merely some material action in a material brain. They contend that consciousness has to be a special kind of material that can be aware of the picture. But if consciousness is a special material, then by what means are the materialists aware of this special material? Some deeper special material perhaps? Indeed, this has to be some special material because an awareness of it requires an ever deeper material. In addition, this awareness seems to continuously escape from the material so that it can look back on it in order to be conscious of it.
One begins to suspect from all this that the material can never be conscious of the material under any circumstances, just as the mirror cannot be conscious of its picture. Only consciousness can recognize the picture, and this consciousness must be something different from the material since it seems to continuously escape from it. But what is this consciousness, and what do we know about it? Precious little actually. About all we know is that it produces a recognized picture and that it seems to possess some connection to infinity. Why this connection? Because consciousness extends ever deeper when we realize that our awareness of the picture requires an awareness of our awareness of the picture, which in turn, requires another awareness until.......well, we get the picture. If only we had the strength, we could extend this awareness into infinity.
All of this speculation raises another question: Can there be an Infinite Consciousness? Since we have already shown that the material can never be aware of the material, and that consciousness has to be something quite different from the material; then we find it impossible to believe that consciousness could ever have been created by a nonconscious material process. Therefore, our finite consciousness must have been created by an Infinite Consciousness.
The materialists may counter all of this speculation by claiming that it all constitutes a mere illusion. Consciousness only seems to be connected to infinity, not actually. But consciousness recognizes this illusion which proves that it is working as it should, and whatever works as it should has to be real. In addition, the materialist cannot explain how he can recognize that consciousness is but a material process but by means of another consciousness that seems continuously to escape from the material. It would seem that even the materialist needs an infinite material in order to be conscious.
Friday, February 15, 2013
THE GOOD versus THE EVIL chapter 7
The Religious History
Exodus 20:1-6
Of all of Satan's lies and machinations, by far the most subtle one that does the most damage to confuse the minds and hearts of men in making a clear distinction between good and evil, is his inventions of false systems of religion. Of all of the sins of ancient Israel and Judah, the one that God fought the hardest was idol worship. Most of the prophets constantly railed against idol worship. In I Kings 18:25-41, the prophet Elijah proved in a contest between two sacrifices that the Hebrew God Yahweh was the only God and that all other gods were false. God told Elijah to initiate this contest and had it recorded in His Word so that all of humanity could learn that He is the only God and that all forms of idol worship, which is all forms of false religion, is by far the most dangerous lie of the Devil meant to deceive the hearts of men.
False religion and idol worship are the same sins. The Bible records that God could easily handle any of the ordinary sins of any of His backslidden believers, but God always had a hard fight against false religion and idol worship because God knew that this sin, which stems from pride, had the potential to destroy the entire human race. The basis of this sin is that terrible pride which entered the heart of Lucifer when he rebelled against God. In some mysterious way, the emptiness that results from the false combination called pride, as opposed to the true basic feeling called pride, engendered within the heart of Lucifer a fierce determination to kill God and make himself a god. He had to try to fill that terrible emptiness. This same self-serving attitude constitutes the core of original sin and false religion within the hearts of men.
This strange false combination called pride actually exists as a contradiction. This false combination could be worded: "A desire to replace God with self." All idols and false religions represent extensions of the self. Each individual idea within this false combination remains real and useful in good combinations that honor God's Ideas, but when falsely combined, these ideas constitute false pride and false religion. All false combinations effect a nothingness which, in turn, conceals a nonexistence that could also be called an absolute nothingness. For this reason, pride engenders within the hearts of men an awful feeling of dread and emptiness even though we often deny this. Philosophers who have recognized this feeling in man have called it "alienation from self,"(Hegel) or "angst," (Kierkegaard) or "nausea" (Sartre). C.S. Lewis called it "the abolition of man." This "dread" is that part of his false pride which causes man to know, deep within himself, the impossibility of ever becoming his own self-serving god. Despite his deep fear of failure, man nevertheless persists in his fierce determination to succeed in his false endeavor, and at the same time, the contradiction of this fierce determination causes guilt and a deep yearning within man for a self-destruction that will eradicate both the sin and the self.
This contradiction called pride manifests itself in history in two ways, in religion and in dissipation. The pleasure seekers know that alcohol, drugs, illicit sex, gambling, crime and all other forms of excessive pleasure will eventually destroy them, but they secretly desire this destruction because of the emptiness effected by false combinations. Those who practice religion may be good citizens and moral people, but in their devotions to their false religions which may simply be a love of money or power or popularity, they display a secret desire to serve themselves. They believe that their religion or money or power will cause them to become their own little gods who do not need the Love of God. Yet at times, even religious and moral people deeply feel that secret emptiness that results from pride.
The contradiction within pride often manifests itself in religious ceremonies, even in Christian ceremonies. The Old Testament reveals this contradiction between a desire to become a god and an obsession with self-destruction when it recorded that parents would sometimes throw their own children into fires that burned before idols because they believed their gods would reward them with prosperity for doing this. A modern parallel to this practice adheres to the ideology that teaches women that they have the right to abort their unborn children if they have become a burden to them in any way. Man possesses only those rights that are given by God, and one of these is the right to life. The Devil has spread modern lies that humans have additional putative rights such as gay marriage and abortion, but these so-called rights are merely false combinations. They destroy rather than produce anything creative. Many Christians have been seduced into believing these lies. These are often the same kinds of Christians who treat worship of God as a mere ceremony that they must go through in order to please God so that He will reward them for enduring these ceremonies. This kind of perfunctory worship actually only displays idol worship because these putative Christians have treated a Holy God like their own little idol who will allow them to be their own little god.
Matthew 22:37-38
True Christians worship God with an absolute love and devotion and with a complete submission to His Will no matter what His Will might be. True Christians also display an absolute faith in God's Word, and never allow themselves to compromise His Word under any circumstances. These are the Christians who have been spiritually born into the family of God because they humbly admitted to God that they were lost sinners who could only be saved by being washed in the blood of Jesus which He shed for them on the cross. These are the Christians who have been born of the Spirit, and who have the Holy Spirit within them; He who gives them the ability to "worship Him in spirit and in truth."Read John 4:24.
Throughout history, the Devil has tried to destroy mankind by using ever more subtle lies. He has invented idol worship, false philosophies, a false science and false political systems to lure mankind away from trusting in the true and living Word of God. Satan has even infiltrated Christianity with the lies of false doctrine and subtle forms of idol worship. Yet, God has miraculously preserved His true gospel even at the heart of those churches that are riddled with the lies of the Devil. For example, no mere man has the power to turn wine into the blood of Jesus, but the fact that the congregation drinks this wine demonstrates that God has preserved the core doctrine within Catholicism that only the blood of Jesus can cleanse one from sin. Those who receive this wine as a mere ceremony practice idol worship, but some may actually believe that the blood of Jesus has washed away their sins. Who has the right to say that those who so believe have not been saved? Does not this judgment belong solely to a compassionate God? Jesus gave Christians no right to judge eternal matters. Read Matthew 7:1-2. This judgment belongs solely to God. Jesus gives Christians the right to judge evil and goodness when they see it, but not the person doing the good or evil. Read Matthew 7:15-20. The trees to which Jesus refers in this teaching are not the persons, but is simply the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that is within every person. Christians may speculate as to whether a particular person is saved or not, but never judge. Is it not possible that our Holy God of infinite compassion and understanding would accept such weak faith even though falsities are attached to it? The Bible relates in II Chronicles 30:15-22 that God answered the prayer of King Hezekiah and pardoned the people who committed some false practices while observing the passover. In addition, God may accept this weak faith even though those who drink this wine believe that they must come again and again to the altar to receive it, when God's Word teaches that a repentent sinner needs but once to be washed in the blood of Jesus in order to be permanently born into the family of God. Read Hebrews 10:14-18.
Through the centuries from the time of Christ, the Devil has succeeded in infiltrating the church with false doctrines, false teachers, false Bibles and false leaders so that many modern denominations have compromised with evil and denied the true Word of God, which is the King James Bible in English. At the beginning of Christianity, the Devil raised up many cults which claimed to be Christian, such as the Gnostics and the Arians, in his attempt to destroy Christianity through a direct attack against its doctrines. The Devil still has many cults in the modern world, such as the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnessess. The central doctrine of all cults is that they deny the Deity of Christ or His Oneness with His Father. The Devil has also tried to destroy Christianity directly through severe persecutions inflicted by false religions; the Roman pagans and the phony hierarchy of the Roman church in the past, and the Muslims, Nazis and Communists in the past and present. The Devil has introduced the sins of racism and anti-semitism into the church in order to try to corrupt it from within. The Devil has used some false leaders of some churches to compromise with the false science called the theory of evolution in order to try to slowly strangle Christianity to death. The Jewish people may have suffered more from direct persecution, but Christianity has suffered greatly from direct persecution and the Devil has used every trick in his book in his attempts to destroy it. Despite all of these persecutions and false systems from the Devil, God has miraculously preserved His true Word and His true gospel right down to the present day.
Exodus 20:1-6
Of all of Satan's lies and machinations, by far the most subtle one that does the most damage to confuse the minds and hearts of men in making a clear distinction between good and evil, is his inventions of false systems of religion. Of all of the sins of ancient Israel and Judah, the one that God fought the hardest was idol worship. Most of the prophets constantly railed against idol worship. In I Kings 18:25-41, the prophet Elijah proved in a contest between two sacrifices that the Hebrew God Yahweh was the only God and that all other gods were false. God told Elijah to initiate this contest and had it recorded in His Word so that all of humanity could learn that He is the only God and that all forms of idol worship, which is all forms of false religion, is by far the most dangerous lie of the Devil meant to deceive the hearts of men.
False religion and idol worship are the same sins. The Bible records that God could easily handle any of the ordinary sins of any of His backslidden believers, but God always had a hard fight against false religion and idol worship because God knew that this sin, which stems from pride, had the potential to destroy the entire human race. The basis of this sin is that terrible pride which entered the heart of Lucifer when he rebelled against God. In some mysterious way, the emptiness that results from the false combination called pride, as opposed to the true basic feeling called pride, engendered within the heart of Lucifer a fierce determination to kill God and make himself a god. He had to try to fill that terrible emptiness. This same self-serving attitude constitutes the core of original sin and false religion within the hearts of men.
This strange false combination called pride actually exists as a contradiction. This false combination could be worded: "A desire to replace God with self." All idols and false religions represent extensions of the self. Each individual idea within this false combination remains real and useful in good combinations that honor God's Ideas, but when falsely combined, these ideas constitute false pride and false religion. All false combinations effect a nothingness which, in turn, conceals a nonexistence that could also be called an absolute nothingness. For this reason, pride engenders within the hearts of men an awful feeling of dread and emptiness even though we often deny this. Philosophers who have recognized this feeling in man have called it "alienation from self,"(Hegel) or "angst," (Kierkegaard) or "nausea" (Sartre). C.S. Lewis called it "the abolition of man." This "dread" is that part of his false pride which causes man to know, deep within himself, the impossibility of ever becoming his own self-serving god. Despite his deep fear of failure, man nevertheless persists in his fierce determination to succeed in his false endeavor, and at the same time, the contradiction of this fierce determination causes guilt and a deep yearning within man for a self-destruction that will eradicate both the sin and the self.
This contradiction called pride manifests itself in history in two ways, in religion and in dissipation. The pleasure seekers know that alcohol, drugs, illicit sex, gambling, crime and all other forms of excessive pleasure will eventually destroy them, but they secretly desire this destruction because of the emptiness effected by false combinations. Those who practice religion may be good citizens and moral people, but in their devotions to their false religions which may simply be a love of money or power or popularity, they display a secret desire to serve themselves. They believe that their religion or money or power will cause them to become their own little gods who do not need the Love of God. Yet at times, even religious and moral people deeply feel that secret emptiness that results from pride.
The contradiction within pride often manifests itself in religious ceremonies, even in Christian ceremonies. The Old Testament reveals this contradiction between a desire to become a god and an obsession with self-destruction when it recorded that parents would sometimes throw their own children into fires that burned before idols because they believed their gods would reward them with prosperity for doing this. A modern parallel to this practice adheres to the ideology that teaches women that they have the right to abort their unborn children if they have become a burden to them in any way. Man possesses only those rights that are given by God, and one of these is the right to life. The Devil has spread modern lies that humans have additional putative rights such as gay marriage and abortion, but these so-called rights are merely false combinations. They destroy rather than produce anything creative. Many Christians have been seduced into believing these lies. These are often the same kinds of Christians who treat worship of God as a mere ceremony that they must go through in order to please God so that He will reward them for enduring these ceremonies. This kind of perfunctory worship actually only displays idol worship because these putative Christians have treated a Holy God like their own little idol who will allow them to be their own little god.
Matthew 22:37-38
True Christians worship God with an absolute love and devotion and with a complete submission to His Will no matter what His Will might be. True Christians also display an absolute faith in God's Word, and never allow themselves to compromise His Word under any circumstances. These are the Christians who have been spiritually born into the family of God because they humbly admitted to God that they were lost sinners who could only be saved by being washed in the blood of Jesus which He shed for them on the cross. These are the Christians who have been born of the Spirit, and who have the Holy Spirit within them; He who gives them the ability to "worship Him in spirit and in truth."Read John 4:24.
Throughout history, the Devil has tried to destroy mankind by using ever more subtle lies. He has invented idol worship, false philosophies, a false science and false political systems to lure mankind away from trusting in the true and living Word of God. Satan has even infiltrated Christianity with the lies of false doctrine and subtle forms of idol worship. Yet, God has miraculously preserved His true gospel even at the heart of those churches that are riddled with the lies of the Devil. For example, no mere man has the power to turn wine into the blood of Jesus, but the fact that the congregation drinks this wine demonstrates that God has preserved the core doctrine within Catholicism that only the blood of Jesus can cleanse one from sin. Those who receive this wine as a mere ceremony practice idol worship, but some may actually believe that the blood of Jesus has washed away their sins. Who has the right to say that those who so believe have not been saved? Does not this judgment belong solely to a compassionate God? Jesus gave Christians no right to judge eternal matters. Read Matthew 7:1-2. This judgment belongs solely to God. Jesus gives Christians the right to judge evil and goodness when they see it, but not the person doing the good or evil. Read Matthew 7:15-20. The trees to which Jesus refers in this teaching are not the persons, but is simply the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that is within every person. Christians may speculate as to whether a particular person is saved or not, but never judge. Is it not possible that our Holy God of infinite compassion and understanding would accept such weak faith even though falsities are attached to it? The Bible relates in II Chronicles 30:15-22 that God answered the prayer of King Hezekiah and pardoned the people who committed some false practices while observing the passover. In addition, God may accept this weak faith even though those who drink this wine believe that they must come again and again to the altar to receive it, when God's Word teaches that a repentent sinner needs but once to be washed in the blood of Jesus in order to be permanently born into the family of God. Read Hebrews 10:14-18.
Through the centuries from the time of Christ, the Devil has succeeded in infiltrating the church with false doctrines, false teachers, false Bibles and false leaders so that many modern denominations have compromised with evil and denied the true Word of God, which is the King James Bible in English. At the beginning of Christianity, the Devil raised up many cults which claimed to be Christian, such as the Gnostics and the Arians, in his attempt to destroy Christianity through a direct attack against its doctrines. The Devil still has many cults in the modern world, such as the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnessess. The central doctrine of all cults is that they deny the Deity of Christ or His Oneness with His Father. The Devil has also tried to destroy Christianity directly through severe persecutions inflicted by false religions; the Roman pagans and the phony hierarchy of the Roman church in the past, and the Muslims, Nazis and Communists in the past and present. The Devil has introduced the sins of racism and anti-semitism into the church in order to try to corrupt it from within. The Devil has used some false leaders of some churches to compromise with the false science called the theory of evolution in order to try to slowly strangle Christianity to death. The Jewish people may have suffered more from direct persecution, but Christianity has suffered greatly from direct persecution and the Devil has used every trick in his book in his attempts to destroy it. Despite all of these persecutions and false systems from the Devil, God has miraculously preserved His true Word and His true gospel right down to the present day.
Friday, February 8, 2013
THE GOOD versus THE EVIL chapter 6
The Scientific History
Read I Corinthians 1: 22
Throughout the history of mankind, certain philosophers and scientists have taken the atheistic and materialistic view of life. Other philosophers and scientists have taken the theistic and idealistic view of life. Most of the realists have taken the theistic view, and most of the skeptics have taken the atheistic view. Many of the early philosophers and scientists resided in Europe, some in Greece. Some of the theistic philosophers and scientists professed to believe in the gods, but the greatest of them, such as Plato and Aristotle, intimated in their writings that they actually believed in One God. This was no accident. God used the writings of Plato and Aristotle to prepare the minds of the Europeans for the future spread of Christianity.
God chose not to use the teachings of philosophers and scientists to inform the minds of His chosen people, the Hebrews. He chose prophets and priests instead. God provided His prophets with powers to perform miracles and predict the future. God knew that His people had the types of minds that would not be interested in abstract reasoning, but who would respond to the powers and signs of God revealed through His chosen prophets. God provided the spiritual leadership for His people through His prophets and priests from Abraham to John the Baptist. These prophets and priests had to battle continuously against the tendencies of some of the Hebrews to resort to idol worship. Even though many times these prophets and priests and their followers were in the minority, nevertheless, they successfully preserved the Word of God through scribes who wrote it down for centuries, right down to the present day, and even though evil men fought mightily to destroy it. This fact, in-itself, has to be a miracle of God.
Hebrews 1: 1-3
From the time of Jesus the Messiah, God has combined both methods, the signs of miracles and the love of wisdom, to spread the gospel message of Christ throughout the whole world. God has used the record of the miracles performed by Jesus and the Apostles as well as the great wisdom of Jesus, the Apostle Paul and the other Apostles, to appeal to the minds and hearts of all people everywhere who hear the gospel in order to convince them that they are lost sinners in need of a Savior. Christianity began as a very small group of Jewish believers in Jerusalem, but because of the miracle of the resurrection of Christ, Christianity has succeeded in spreading the gospel to the whole world. This fact must also be a miracle from God.
John 12: 32
History demonstrates that God has used miracles and a love of wisdom to maintain a strict balance between good and evil so that a fair test of His Love will always prevail wherever His gospel may be preached. Modern materialistic science has tried to redefine science as being synonymous with atheism, but history has always defined science as the love of wisdom which means a love of the truth wherever it may be found. The fair test of God's love adheres to the free will of mankind. The Holy Spirit brings conviction to the hearts of all who hear or read the gospel that they are lost sinners in need of a Savior. God has allowed evil to remain in the world so that those who read or hear the gospel will have a free and fair choice to either accept it by faith and be saved, or to reject it and remain within the destructive effects of evil. Love is absolutely fair and God proves the great value of His Love by His sacrifice and His fairness. God gives faith to those who cry out to Him for the salvation that Christ has already provided for them through His sacrifice and resurrection. God thus proves that His Love possesses the greatest possible value when He freely gives His forgiveness, His eternal life and a glorious eternal future to anyone who accepts His grace by faith. Yet, those who reject God's grace also prove the greatness of God's Love because He will not force them to believe, but allows them freely to choose their pride and an obsession with self-destruction over the beautiful and glorious salvation which Love would have freely given them. Force cannot be love and modern materialistic science has tried to force mankind to accept its atheistic definition of science when history has always defined science as the love of wisdom.
Psalm 147: 5
God's Word does not concern itself with science directly because God's most important revelation is that His Son has proven that Love has the greatest value through His sacrifice and resurrection for the salvation of a fallen race, and that God will freely give this salvation to all who will choose to believe. Yet, God's Word always proves to be accurate whenever it mentions a scientific fact. Isaiah 40:22 refers to the earth as being a sphere when it mentions "the circle of the earth," and it also refers to the expansion of the universe when it mentions that God "stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain." Job 26:7 refers to a great emptiness in space north of the earth that modern science has now discovered when it states: "He stretcheth out the north over the empty place....." This verse goes on to state: " and hangeth the earth upon nothing." "Hangeth" refers to the force of gravity and "upon nothing" indicates outer space. The first verse of the Bible states that: "God created the heaven and the earth." The atheistic scientists have long asserted that the universe came into being on its own, that it evolved in a natural way so that life, in some undiscoverd way, comes into being on any planet where this is possible; and that through a process of macoevolution, bacteria became fish which became amphibians which became reptiles which became mammals which eventually became man. Although modern science has some good evidence that the universe began with a big bang, it has no evidence that this could have happened by accident or by any known force. In fact, all of the evidence indicates that the big bang was completely impossible. Although modern science has some evidence that the universe evolved into stars and galaxies and planets, it also has evidence that the universe was fine-tuned so that life could survive only on planets where conditions were just right. Modern science has no evidence whatsoever that life can come into being by accident. In fact, the best mathematical evidence indicates that this too is impossible. Modern science has no good evidence that macroevolution ever happened. In fact, science has discovered that the existence of life, as well as the existence of the non-living part of the universe, requires a third component called "specific information" in addition to that of matter and energy. Specific information is essentially the same kind of entity as language or mathematics. The only possible source of specific information is a Mind.
The Bible reveals that God created the expansion of the universe along with the force of gravity, and He created life on earth. John 1:1-5 also relates that God accomplished His creations by using finite copies of His Infinite Specific Information also called the Word of God, and that His Word is One with His Being which is Love. Genesis reveals that God created the universe and life in six periods of time that He called "days," beginning with His creation of light which reflects the eternal existence of the Light which is His Son. He created the earth in two of His "days" from the point of view of someone looking up to the heavens. On the fourth "day," God simply cleared the clouds from the sky so that the sun and stars could be seen from the earth. On the fifth "day," God created animal life in the seas and the birds. On the sixth "day," God created the land animals and mankind. These were six "days" in God's measure of time, and God holds the power to compress or expand time as He sees fit. Psalm 90:4 and II Peter 3:8 reveals this fact. Thus, the billions of years of existence from man's point of view were only six "days" within God's control of time.
The atheistic scientists enjoy pretending that science suffered great persecution at the hands of Christianity. But their only example is that of Galileo who was put under house arrest for a while because he had discovered that the earth orbits the sun. This was paltry persecution compared to the millions of Jews and Christians that have been killed and enslaved by political philosophies based on atheistic science.
In addition, Galileo was never actually persecuted by any Christians, but was arrested by a political hierarchy that had infiltrated and had taken control of the Roman Catholic Church for the purpose of advancing their own political agenda. These were ignorant men who knew little about the Bible. They based their authority for arresting Galileo on Joshua 10:12-13 where Joshua commanded the sun and moon to stand still in the sky so that he would have daylight long enough to defeat the enemies of Israel in battle. These priests reasoned that Galileo had contradicted this passage of scripture when he had said that the earth moves. But these priests failed to consider the simple fact that the Bible only referred to the apparent movement of the sun and moon from Joshua's view from earth. Nowhere does the Bible teach that the earth stands still with the sun orbiting it.
History clearly shows that atheistic science has never been persecuted by Christians or Jews. In fact, when modern science first appeared and began to advance in sixteenth century Europe, most of these early scientists were Christians, including Galileo and Newton. The atheists only began to take control of modern science when an amateur scientist named Charles Darwin published a purely speculative, and even metaphysical, book which advanced the theory that life originated by accident and evolved solely by chance and natural selection from one species to another until man evolved from the apes. This theory completely pushed God's creation out of the picture, and the atheists seized this view to advance their idea that God does not exist because He is not needed. But the atheists adopted this theory solely by faith because there exists no good evidence either then or now that this theory is true. Despite all this, this solely mechanistic theory gained great success in the minds of many people, so much so that it allowed the atheists to take control of modern science. To this day, the atheists seldom try to defend their theory with any real scientific evidence, but maintain their total control, even totalitarian control, over science by ridiculing anyone who disagrees with them as being as ignorant as those who arrested Galileo. The atheists know that most people fear ridicule, and because of this ridicule, even some Christians have tried to find a compromise between this atheistic theory and the truth of God's Word, even though such a compromise is tantamount to a compromise with the Devil.
The atheistic scientists also ridicule Christians who criticize the theory of evolution by claiming that they hold only a God-of -the-gaps objection to it. By this, they mean that the theory of evolution is held up by pillars of solid scientific evidence, and that Christians can only criticize it within the gaps between these pillars. The atheists claim that in time all of these gaps will be filled in by new scientific evidence so that the theory of evolution will finally rest on a solid foundation that cannot be criticized. But the real truth of the matter is that there exists no pillars of evidence for the theory of evolution whatsoever. The whole theory equals one huge gap. The theory of evolution actually equals nothing, which is typical of all false combinations.
History proves that the Devil originated this evil theory because it has spawned two atheistic political philosophies, Fascism and Communism, which have employed war, genocide, enslavement, and even forced starvation to inflict untold suffering and agony on the human race. It is quite ironic that the atheists who so ridicule Christians for their faith, have accepted a purely mechanistic and metaphysical theory solely by faith, for which there exists no scientific evidence whatsoever.
Read I Corinthians 1: 22
Throughout the history of mankind, certain philosophers and scientists have taken the atheistic and materialistic view of life. Other philosophers and scientists have taken the theistic and idealistic view of life. Most of the realists have taken the theistic view, and most of the skeptics have taken the atheistic view. Many of the early philosophers and scientists resided in Europe, some in Greece. Some of the theistic philosophers and scientists professed to believe in the gods, but the greatest of them, such as Plato and Aristotle, intimated in their writings that they actually believed in One God. This was no accident. God used the writings of Plato and Aristotle to prepare the minds of the Europeans for the future spread of Christianity.
God chose not to use the teachings of philosophers and scientists to inform the minds of His chosen people, the Hebrews. He chose prophets and priests instead. God provided His prophets with powers to perform miracles and predict the future. God knew that His people had the types of minds that would not be interested in abstract reasoning, but who would respond to the powers and signs of God revealed through His chosen prophets. God provided the spiritual leadership for His people through His prophets and priests from Abraham to John the Baptist. These prophets and priests had to battle continuously against the tendencies of some of the Hebrews to resort to idol worship. Even though many times these prophets and priests and their followers were in the minority, nevertheless, they successfully preserved the Word of God through scribes who wrote it down for centuries, right down to the present day, and even though evil men fought mightily to destroy it. This fact, in-itself, has to be a miracle of God.
Hebrews 1: 1-3
From the time of Jesus the Messiah, God has combined both methods, the signs of miracles and the love of wisdom, to spread the gospel message of Christ throughout the whole world. God has used the record of the miracles performed by Jesus and the Apostles as well as the great wisdom of Jesus, the Apostle Paul and the other Apostles, to appeal to the minds and hearts of all people everywhere who hear the gospel in order to convince them that they are lost sinners in need of a Savior. Christianity began as a very small group of Jewish believers in Jerusalem, but because of the miracle of the resurrection of Christ, Christianity has succeeded in spreading the gospel to the whole world. This fact must also be a miracle from God.
John 12: 32
History demonstrates that God has used miracles and a love of wisdom to maintain a strict balance between good and evil so that a fair test of His Love will always prevail wherever His gospel may be preached. Modern materialistic science has tried to redefine science as being synonymous with atheism, but history has always defined science as the love of wisdom which means a love of the truth wherever it may be found. The fair test of God's love adheres to the free will of mankind. The Holy Spirit brings conviction to the hearts of all who hear or read the gospel that they are lost sinners in need of a Savior. God has allowed evil to remain in the world so that those who read or hear the gospel will have a free and fair choice to either accept it by faith and be saved, or to reject it and remain within the destructive effects of evil. Love is absolutely fair and God proves the great value of His Love by His sacrifice and His fairness. God gives faith to those who cry out to Him for the salvation that Christ has already provided for them through His sacrifice and resurrection. God thus proves that His Love possesses the greatest possible value when He freely gives His forgiveness, His eternal life and a glorious eternal future to anyone who accepts His grace by faith. Yet, those who reject God's grace also prove the greatness of God's Love because He will not force them to believe, but allows them freely to choose their pride and an obsession with self-destruction over the beautiful and glorious salvation which Love would have freely given them. Force cannot be love and modern materialistic science has tried to force mankind to accept its atheistic definition of science when history has always defined science as the love of wisdom.
Psalm 147: 5
God's Word does not concern itself with science directly because God's most important revelation is that His Son has proven that Love has the greatest value through His sacrifice and resurrection for the salvation of a fallen race, and that God will freely give this salvation to all who will choose to believe. Yet, God's Word always proves to be accurate whenever it mentions a scientific fact. Isaiah 40:22 refers to the earth as being a sphere when it mentions "the circle of the earth," and it also refers to the expansion of the universe when it mentions that God "stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain." Job 26:7 refers to a great emptiness in space north of the earth that modern science has now discovered when it states: "He stretcheth out the north over the empty place....." This verse goes on to state: " and hangeth the earth upon nothing." "Hangeth" refers to the force of gravity and "upon nothing" indicates outer space. The first verse of the Bible states that: "God created the heaven and the earth." The atheistic scientists have long asserted that the universe came into being on its own, that it evolved in a natural way so that life, in some undiscoverd way, comes into being on any planet where this is possible; and that through a process of macoevolution, bacteria became fish which became amphibians which became reptiles which became mammals which eventually became man. Although modern science has some good evidence that the universe began with a big bang, it has no evidence that this could have happened by accident or by any known force. In fact, all of the evidence indicates that the big bang was completely impossible. Although modern science has some evidence that the universe evolved into stars and galaxies and planets, it also has evidence that the universe was fine-tuned so that life could survive only on planets where conditions were just right. Modern science has no evidence whatsoever that life can come into being by accident. In fact, the best mathematical evidence indicates that this too is impossible. Modern science has no good evidence that macroevolution ever happened. In fact, science has discovered that the existence of life, as well as the existence of the non-living part of the universe, requires a third component called "specific information" in addition to that of matter and energy. Specific information is essentially the same kind of entity as language or mathematics. The only possible source of specific information is a Mind.
The Bible reveals that God created the expansion of the universe along with the force of gravity, and He created life on earth. John 1:1-5 also relates that God accomplished His creations by using finite copies of His Infinite Specific Information also called the Word of God, and that His Word is One with His Being which is Love. Genesis reveals that God created the universe and life in six periods of time that He called "days," beginning with His creation of light which reflects the eternal existence of the Light which is His Son. He created the earth in two of His "days" from the point of view of someone looking up to the heavens. On the fourth "day," God simply cleared the clouds from the sky so that the sun and stars could be seen from the earth. On the fifth "day," God created animal life in the seas and the birds. On the sixth "day," God created the land animals and mankind. These were six "days" in God's measure of time, and God holds the power to compress or expand time as He sees fit. Psalm 90:4 and II Peter 3:8 reveals this fact. Thus, the billions of years of existence from man's point of view were only six "days" within God's control of time.
The atheistic scientists enjoy pretending that science suffered great persecution at the hands of Christianity. But their only example is that of Galileo who was put under house arrest for a while because he had discovered that the earth orbits the sun. This was paltry persecution compared to the millions of Jews and Christians that have been killed and enslaved by political philosophies based on atheistic science.
In addition, Galileo was never actually persecuted by any Christians, but was arrested by a political hierarchy that had infiltrated and had taken control of the Roman Catholic Church for the purpose of advancing their own political agenda. These were ignorant men who knew little about the Bible. They based their authority for arresting Galileo on Joshua 10:12-13 where Joshua commanded the sun and moon to stand still in the sky so that he would have daylight long enough to defeat the enemies of Israel in battle. These priests reasoned that Galileo had contradicted this passage of scripture when he had said that the earth moves. But these priests failed to consider the simple fact that the Bible only referred to the apparent movement of the sun and moon from Joshua's view from earth. Nowhere does the Bible teach that the earth stands still with the sun orbiting it.
History clearly shows that atheistic science has never been persecuted by Christians or Jews. In fact, when modern science first appeared and began to advance in sixteenth century Europe, most of these early scientists were Christians, including Galileo and Newton. The atheists only began to take control of modern science when an amateur scientist named Charles Darwin published a purely speculative, and even metaphysical, book which advanced the theory that life originated by accident and evolved solely by chance and natural selection from one species to another until man evolved from the apes. This theory completely pushed God's creation out of the picture, and the atheists seized this view to advance their idea that God does not exist because He is not needed. But the atheists adopted this theory solely by faith because there exists no good evidence either then or now that this theory is true. Despite all this, this solely mechanistic theory gained great success in the minds of many people, so much so that it allowed the atheists to take control of modern science. To this day, the atheists seldom try to defend their theory with any real scientific evidence, but maintain their total control, even totalitarian control, over science by ridiculing anyone who disagrees with them as being as ignorant as those who arrested Galileo. The atheists know that most people fear ridicule, and because of this ridicule, even some Christians have tried to find a compromise between this atheistic theory and the truth of God's Word, even though such a compromise is tantamount to a compromise with the Devil.
The atheistic scientists also ridicule Christians who criticize the theory of evolution by claiming that they hold only a God-of -the-gaps objection to it. By this, they mean that the theory of evolution is held up by pillars of solid scientific evidence, and that Christians can only criticize it within the gaps between these pillars. The atheists claim that in time all of these gaps will be filled in by new scientific evidence so that the theory of evolution will finally rest on a solid foundation that cannot be criticized. But the real truth of the matter is that there exists no pillars of evidence for the theory of evolution whatsoever. The whole theory equals one huge gap. The theory of evolution actually equals nothing, which is typical of all false combinations.
History proves that the Devil originated this evil theory because it has spawned two atheistic political philosophies, Fascism and Communism, which have employed war, genocide, enslavement, and even forced starvation to inflict untold suffering and agony on the human race. It is quite ironic that the atheists who so ridicule Christians for their faith, have accepted a purely mechanistic and metaphysical theory solely by faith, for which there exists no scientific evidence whatsoever.
Friday, January 25, 2013
THE GOOD versus THE EVIL chapter 5
The Political History
The war between good and evil that lies within history reveals itself in every aspect of human life including politics. Satan constantly works through all political systems to try to crush goodness out of the world and thus overthrow the balance that God has maintained between good and evil which ensures that His Love will receive a fair test in history. God uses various methods to prevent Satan from gaining control over and using political systems for evil purposes.
From time to time, Satan has raised great empires bent on gaining control over the whole world, but also for the hidden purpose of getting control over God's people so that he can eventually convert them to evil or destroy them outright. The first such recorded empire was Babylon which conquered Judea around 600 B.C. and deported most of the wealthy and middle class Jews to Babylon. God allowed this to happen because much of Judea had given itself to idol worship which God must punish in order to correct. Idol worship and pride are the two most dangerous weapons that Satan uses to try to crush goodness completely. The Babylonians left the poorer classes in Judea because they thought their influence in the world was insignificant. Since many of God's people have always been among the poorer classes, God saved many of His people from slavery in this way. Some of God's people were deported, but God ensured their protection by gaining control over the mind of the king, Nebuchadnezzar. In Daniel, chapters one through four, the Bible records the methods which God used to gain control over the mind of Nebuchadnezzar which caused him to recognize the Jewish God as the only true God, and issue a decree that would ensure the protection of God's people. Satan had made his political move, but God countered with His own move which protected His people and preserved the balance between good and evil.
After Nebuchadnezzar, the fifth chapter of Daniel records that God continued His protection of His people by using a method that scared king Belshazzar out of his wits. God used the hand that wrote on the wall to proclaim the doom of Babylon to king Belshazzar. That very night, God punished Babylon by allowing the Medes and Persians to conquer it. The fear that God had instilled into Belshazzar no doubt spread to his followers and thus to his army and caused the downfall of Babylon.
Chapter six of Daniel records that king Darius was, for the most part, a fairminded man who only wanted to use the most talented men to rule over Babylon. Thus, king Darius selected Daniel because of his great intellect and leadership talents to be the head of his puppet government. In addition, Darius had no doubt learned the story of how God had instilled such great fear in Belshazzar and the part that Daniel had played in the downfall of Babylon. Yet, Satan influenced certain of the princes of the Persians to trick king Darius into issuing a decree that no one could petition any god or man but king Darius for thirty days and all who disobeyed should be cast into a den of lions. These princes knew that Daniel would disobey this decree and pray to God, and so they caught him so doing and delivered him to the king to be cast into the den of lions. King Darius could not get around the rule of law that the princes insisted on upholding, and so the king had Daniel cast into the den of lions. But Darius displayed his faith in Daniel's God by assuring him that God would protect him. God did indeed perform a great miracle and protected Daniel from the lions. King Darius then issued a decree to the whole empire that all men should fear the God of Daniel. The plot devised by the princes to destroy Daniel was meant to cause despair among God's people; a loss of faith that would eventually cause God's people to become absorbed into idol worship. Satan was behind this political plot to crush goodness out of God's world. God countered Satan's move by protecting Daniel from the lions, instilling faith in king Darius and thus maintaing His balance between good and evil.
The seventh chapter of Daniel returns to a prophecy that Daniel revealed to king Belshazzar about the four great empires that Satan would use in his attempts to crush all goodness completely out of the world, prevent God's trial of His Love, eliminate all of God's influence from the world, and bring all of mankind into enslavement. Throughout the rest of the book of Daniel, here and there he prophesied that these four empires would be destroyed, and that God would succeed in the future in bringing His suffering Messiah into the world to complete the trial of His Love, and that at some time in the far future this same Messiah will destroy Satan's beast who will be the leader of Satan's armies that will fight against God, and that this Messiah will then establish God's Kingdom in the world. The history of the world from the time of Daniel has certainly borne out his prophecies. Four great empires have arisen and fallen, and the suffering Messiah has come and completed the trial of God's Love, and His gospel has been preached to the world so that all who will believe will be saved. History down to the present day demonstrates God's awesome miracles; that mighty empires have failed to crush goodness out of the world, and that God has used a small and humble people to preserve His Word and to complete the trial of His Love which is the salvation of all who will believe. God has also succeeded in restoring His Jewish people to their own land just as His Word has prophesied even after being scattered over the whole world for two thousand years and terribly persecuted. Considering the further miracles of how God has preserved Israel through the 1948 war, and all of its other wars with a hoard of enemies striving mightily to destroy it, one wonders how anyone can doubt that the future prophecies of Daniel that the Messiah will come again to destroy Satan's evil armies, will not be fulfilled.
The book of Esther records a change in the Devil's tactics that he uses even now in his attempts to destroy the people of God. Satan invented a new false combination employing an unreasoned hatred for God's people simply for being the people of God. This was the beginning of all forms of ethnic, racial and religious bigotry. The history of the world does not seem to record any of this kind of hatred before this time.
King Ahasuerus promoted one of his princes named Haman, who was a very prideful man, to a higher position in his kingdom. But one of the king's advisors, a Jew named Mordecai, would not bow to him. This hurt the pride of Haman and engendered a great hatred in him for Modecai, and by extention, to all Jews. His hatred caused Haman to lie to king Ahasureus in that he accused the Jews of disobeying the laws of the land and of thus being in a state of rebellion against the king. Haman convinced the king that he should issue a decree that all of the Jews in the kingdom should be destroyed on a certain date. Satan had worked through Haman to intoduce a new horrible false combination into the world called genocide. But God was ahead of Satan and had already positioned a courageous Jewish lady named Esther, as one of the king's queens, to thwart the evil plans of Haman and bring about his destruction instead of her people's. Haman was the first of the Anti-Semites, who should more accurately be called the Anti-Judahites, who would plague the Jewish people throughout the rest of their history. Yet throughout history, God has proven to be more than able to counter Satan's evil plans to destroy God's people, both Jews and Christians.
Read Daniel 2: 21-22
Direct and indirect persecution of the Jews continued throughout the Greek and Roman empires. One of the Greek rulers of the Jews, Antiochus Epiphanes, sacrificed a sow on the altar of the Jewish temple. Satan inspired him to do this in order to cause despair among the Jews in that they would wonder why God would allow such an abomination to happen. Satan hoped that this despair would cause a complete loss of faith in God and prevent the coming of the Messiah and the test of God's Love. Satan's plan failed when the Jews simply cleansed the temple and renewed their worship of God.
The Roman persecution of the Jews culminated in their war against the Jewish rebellion in 70 A.D. The Romans went too far with their force and violence when they slaughtered most of the Jews, destroyed their temple, and forced the rest to be scattered over the whole world. God had prophesied in the Old Testament in several places that the Jews would be so scattered, but God had also prophesied that one day He would regather His earthly people and recreate their nation which His Word had even prophesied would be called Israel. Satan counted on the scattered Jews eventually losing their faith and thus making the future nation of Israel impossible. This would thwart the will of God and finally cause the world to belong entirely to Satan. But many of the Jews miraculously clung to their faith even through two thousand years of the Diaspora. Actually, God had protected the Jews by allowing them to be scattered over the world. Most of the Jews became good and productive citizens of whatever communities that they joined. This caused the good and fair-minded people of these communities to provide protection for the Jews against the Anti-Semites who sought to destroy them. Sometimes however this protection failed, and the Jews became the victims of pogroms and inquisitions inflicted upon them by the Anti-Semites who had infiltrated both the governments and religion. Despite all this, God miraculously fulfilled His prophecy and reestablished the nation of Israel in 1948.
In 1933, the Anti-Semites gained control over a whole country, Germany. These Nazis then proceeded to attempt to destroy the entire population of Jews living in Europe. They endeavored through waging war to gain control of the whole world and destroy all of the Jews everywhere. The Nazis waged war against most of the other European countries and wherever their armies found Jews, they killed them. But even under such horrible conditions, there were some good and fair-minded people in each of these countries, even in Germany itself, who tried to save small groups of Jews from destruction. The good and fair-minded free people of the world also united in a mighty force called the Allies who defeated the Nazi war machine and saved the Jews who were left in Europe. Because of the guilt felt by the good people of Europe and America that they had failed to stop the Nazis before they got started, Britain and America determined that they would ensure that the Jews would regain their ancient homeland in Palestine. God brought the Nazis to defeat, and He made sure, by bringing guilt on good people, that Israel would be reestablished as a nation in 1948.
God also proved, through Hitler's foolish actions, that evil always possesses the seeds of its own destruction. At that time, Germany had the very best scientists and engineers in the world. Given time, Germany could have produced greatly advanced weapons that would have ensured that Germany could have conquered the world fairly easily. Germany could have raced ahead of the naive Allies who only wanted peace at any cost, and produced all of these advanced weapons before the Allies could have even gotten started on them. All of this raises the question: Why did not Hitler simply wait until he had these weapons before he started the war? Had Hitler waited until he had these weapons, including atomic bombs and long-range missiles and airplanes to deliver them, he could have fairly quickly conquered the world and saved the lives of millions of his own soldiers in the process. Instead, he went to war far too soon and unnecessarily sacrificed the lives of his soldiers for limited gains. Hitler also made the great mistake of going to war with Russia before he had conquered Britain. During the war, Hitler made many egregious blunders including refusing to allow whole armies to retreat when they were surrounded and cut off from supplies, such as at Stalingrad. In fact, Russian leaders had plans to assassinate Hitler by using certain of their secret agents in Germany, but they decided not to do so because they rightly concluded that Hitler had more value to them alive than dead.
All of this evidence points to the fact that deep within the psyche of evil men, they know that they are evil. This deep knowledge of their own evil causes them to be obsessed with death and destruction, of themselves and everyone around them. Their inner ability to construct false combinations causes a sense of worthlessness and emptiness within themselves which acts out to cause cruelty and destruction. This shows that all men secretly know that false combinations only produce nothingness. Yet, instead of humbly turning to God to plead for a cure for their sin, evil men, like Lucifer, adopt a terrible pride which causes them to believe that they can rid themselves of God's Goodness. In a kind of vicious cycle, their sin feeds their pride, which in turn, feeds their sin. This condition constitutes the mystery of evil which not even God can understand.
Near the end of the war, Hitler ordered that the entire infrastructure of Germany should be destroyed. An obedience to such an order would have left Germany completely destitute, and the people had better sense than to obey it. Hitler's reason for this order was that since Germany had failed him, then Germany deserved only destruction. This order revealed only a terrible pride and a will for utter destruction. This evidence points to the fact that Hitler never really loved Germany. Hitler actually loved only horror and destruction, of himself and his people.
The history of WWII in many ways corresponds with the history in the Bible. Bible history records that God used many methods to combat evil and maintain the balance between good and evil. For instance, I Kings chapter 22 records that God caused one evil force to go to war with another evil force. This tactic not only destroyed evil, but also spared the lives of many good people who did not have to fight. In this same history, God used lies to persuade the evil forces to fight each other. God possesses the ability to use false combinations, such as war and lies, to combat other false combinations in order to create good combinations that produce a desired result which is the destruction of evil. God used these same tactics in WWII when He caused one evil force, the Nazis, to fight against another evil force, the Communists, in order to destroy evil in such a way as also to protect the lives of millions of good people. God also inspired the Allies to invent various ingenious lies that hastened the destruction of the evil forces. Because of His great Love, God holds the power to change false combinations into good combinations. Read Proverbs 10: 12.
All of this proves that God has used extraordinary measures throughout the political history of the world to protect goodness from being completely destroyed by evil. Had God not done so, evil would have long ago completely overwhelmed goodness because of the inherent innocence within limited goodness. Limited cleverness beats limited innocence every time. God wins over evil because He possesses an infinite and omnipotent Love and Innocence which cannot be overwhelmed. God possesses an absolute cleverness which gives Him the power to change evil to good. Nevertheless, God has allowed evil to remain in history in order to maintain a balance between good and evil so that those who freely choose to put their faith in God's Goodness as displayed in the cross of Christ will prove beyond all doubt that God's Love holds the greatest value that can ever possibly exist.
The war between good and evil that lies within history reveals itself in every aspect of human life including politics. Satan constantly works through all political systems to try to crush goodness out of the world and thus overthrow the balance that God has maintained between good and evil which ensures that His Love will receive a fair test in history. God uses various methods to prevent Satan from gaining control over and using political systems for evil purposes.
From time to time, Satan has raised great empires bent on gaining control over the whole world, but also for the hidden purpose of getting control over God's people so that he can eventually convert them to evil or destroy them outright. The first such recorded empire was Babylon which conquered Judea around 600 B.C. and deported most of the wealthy and middle class Jews to Babylon. God allowed this to happen because much of Judea had given itself to idol worship which God must punish in order to correct. Idol worship and pride are the two most dangerous weapons that Satan uses to try to crush goodness completely. The Babylonians left the poorer classes in Judea because they thought their influence in the world was insignificant. Since many of God's people have always been among the poorer classes, God saved many of His people from slavery in this way. Some of God's people were deported, but God ensured their protection by gaining control over the mind of the king, Nebuchadnezzar. In Daniel, chapters one through four, the Bible records the methods which God used to gain control over the mind of Nebuchadnezzar which caused him to recognize the Jewish God as the only true God, and issue a decree that would ensure the protection of God's people. Satan had made his political move, but God countered with His own move which protected His people and preserved the balance between good and evil.
After Nebuchadnezzar, the fifth chapter of Daniel records that God continued His protection of His people by using a method that scared king Belshazzar out of his wits. God used the hand that wrote on the wall to proclaim the doom of Babylon to king Belshazzar. That very night, God punished Babylon by allowing the Medes and Persians to conquer it. The fear that God had instilled into Belshazzar no doubt spread to his followers and thus to his army and caused the downfall of Babylon.
Chapter six of Daniel records that king Darius was, for the most part, a fairminded man who only wanted to use the most talented men to rule over Babylon. Thus, king Darius selected Daniel because of his great intellect and leadership talents to be the head of his puppet government. In addition, Darius had no doubt learned the story of how God had instilled such great fear in Belshazzar and the part that Daniel had played in the downfall of Babylon. Yet, Satan influenced certain of the princes of the Persians to trick king Darius into issuing a decree that no one could petition any god or man but king Darius for thirty days and all who disobeyed should be cast into a den of lions. These princes knew that Daniel would disobey this decree and pray to God, and so they caught him so doing and delivered him to the king to be cast into the den of lions. King Darius could not get around the rule of law that the princes insisted on upholding, and so the king had Daniel cast into the den of lions. But Darius displayed his faith in Daniel's God by assuring him that God would protect him. God did indeed perform a great miracle and protected Daniel from the lions. King Darius then issued a decree to the whole empire that all men should fear the God of Daniel. The plot devised by the princes to destroy Daniel was meant to cause despair among God's people; a loss of faith that would eventually cause God's people to become absorbed into idol worship. Satan was behind this political plot to crush goodness out of God's world. God countered Satan's move by protecting Daniel from the lions, instilling faith in king Darius and thus maintaing His balance between good and evil.
The seventh chapter of Daniel returns to a prophecy that Daniel revealed to king Belshazzar about the four great empires that Satan would use in his attempts to crush all goodness completely out of the world, prevent God's trial of His Love, eliminate all of God's influence from the world, and bring all of mankind into enslavement. Throughout the rest of the book of Daniel, here and there he prophesied that these four empires would be destroyed, and that God would succeed in the future in bringing His suffering Messiah into the world to complete the trial of His Love, and that at some time in the far future this same Messiah will destroy Satan's beast who will be the leader of Satan's armies that will fight against God, and that this Messiah will then establish God's Kingdom in the world. The history of the world from the time of Daniel has certainly borne out his prophecies. Four great empires have arisen and fallen, and the suffering Messiah has come and completed the trial of God's Love, and His gospel has been preached to the world so that all who will believe will be saved. History down to the present day demonstrates God's awesome miracles; that mighty empires have failed to crush goodness out of the world, and that God has used a small and humble people to preserve His Word and to complete the trial of His Love which is the salvation of all who will believe. God has also succeeded in restoring His Jewish people to their own land just as His Word has prophesied even after being scattered over the whole world for two thousand years and terribly persecuted. Considering the further miracles of how God has preserved Israel through the 1948 war, and all of its other wars with a hoard of enemies striving mightily to destroy it, one wonders how anyone can doubt that the future prophecies of Daniel that the Messiah will come again to destroy Satan's evil armies, will not be fulfilled.
The book of Esther records a change in the Devil's tactics that he uses even now in his attempts to destroy the people of God. Satan invented a new false combination employing an unreasoned hatred for God's people simply for being the people of God. This was the beginning of all forms of ethnic, racial and religious bigotry. The history of the world does not seem to record any of this kind of hatred before this time.
King Ahasuerus promoted one of his princes named Haman, who was a very prideful man, to a higher position in his kingdom. But one of the king's advisors, a Jew named Mordecai, would not bow to him. This hurt the pride of Haman and engendered a great hatred in him for Modecai, and by extention, to all Jews. His hatred caused Haman to lie to king Ahasureus in that he accused the Jews of disobeying the laws of the land and of thus being in a state of rebellion against the king. Haman convinced the king that he should issue a decree that all of the Jews in the kingdom should be destroyed on a certain date. Satan had worked through Haman to intoduce a new horrible false combination into the world called genocide. But God was ahead of Satan and had already positioned a courageous Jewish lady named Esther, as one of the king's queens, to thwart the evil plans of Haman and bring about his destruction instead of her people's. Haman was the first of the Anti-Semites, who should more accurately be called the Anti-Judahites, who would plague the Jewish people throughout the rest of their history. Yet throughout history, God has proven to be more than able to counter Satan's evil plans to destroy God's people, both Jews and Christians.
Read Daniel 2: 21-22
Direct and indirect persecution of the Jews continued throughout the Greek and Roman empires. One of the Greek rulers of the Jews, Antiochus Epiphanes, sacrificed a sow on the altar of the Jewish temple. Satan inspired him to do this in order to cause despair among the Jews in that they would wonder why God would allow such an abomination to happen. Satan hoped that this despair would cause a complete loss of faith in God and prevent the coming of the Messiah and the test of God's Love. Satan's plan failed when the Jews simply cleansed the temple and renewed their worship of God.
The Roman persecution of the Jews culminated in their war against the Jewish rebellion in 70 A.D. The Romans went too far with their force and violence when they slaughtered most of the Jews, destroyed their temple, and forced the rest to be scattered over the whole world. God had prophesied in the Old Testament in several places that the Jews would be so scattered, but God had also prophesied that one day He would regather His earthly people and recreate their nation which His Word had even prophesied would be called Israel. Satan counted on the scattered Jews eventually losing their faith and thus making the future nation of Israel impossible. This would thwart the will of God and finally cause the world to belong entirely to Satan. But many of the Jews miraculously clung to their faith even through two thousand years of the Diaspora. Actually, God had protected the Jews by allowing them to be scattered over the world. Most of the Jews became good and productive citizens of whatever communities that they joined. This caused the good and fair-minded people of these communities to provide protection for the Jews against the Anti-Semites who sought to destroy them. Sometimes however this protection failed, and the Jews became the victims of pogroms and inquisitions inflicted upon them by the Anti-Semites who had infiltrated both the governments and religion. Despite all this, God miraculously fulfilled His prophecy and reestablished the nation of Israel in 1948.
In 1933, the Anti-Semites gained control over a whole country, Germany. These Nazis then proceeded to attempt to destroy the entire population of Jews living in Europe. They endeavored through waging war to gain control of the whole world and destroy all of the Jews everywhere. The Nazis waged war against most of the other European countries and wherever their armies found Jews, they killed them. But even under such horrible conditions, there were some good and fair-minded people in each of these countries, even in Germany itself, who tried to save small groups of Jews from destruction. The good and fair-minded free people of the world also united in a mighty force called the Allies who defeated the Nazi war machine and saved the Jews who were left in Europe. Because of the guilt felt by the good people of Europe and America that they had failed to stop the Nazis before they got started, Britain and America determined that they would ensure that the Jews would regain their ancient homeland in Palestine. God brought the Nazis to defeat, and He made sure, by bringing guilt on good people, that Israel would be reestablished as a nation in 1948.
God also proved, through Hitler's foolish actions, that evil always possesses the seeds of its own destruction. At that time, Germany had the very best scientists and engineers in the world. Given time, Germany could have produced greatly advanced weapons that would have ensured that Germany could have conquered the world fairly easily. Germany could have raced ahead of the naive Allies who only wanted peace at any cost, and produced all of these advanced weapons before the Allies could have even gotten started on them. All of this raises the question: Why did not Hitler simply wait until he had these weapons before he started the war? Had Hitler waited until he had these weapons, including atomic bombs and long-range missiles and airplanes to deliver them, he could have fairly quickly conquered the world and saved the lives of millions of his own soldiers in the process. Instead, he went to war far too soon and unnecessarily sacrificed the lives of his soldiers for limited gains. Hitler also made the great mistake of going to war with Russia before he had conquered Britain. During the war, Hitler made many egregious blunders including refusing to allow whole armies to retreat when they were surrounded and cut off from supplies, such as at Stalingrad. In fact, Russian leaders had plans to assassinate Hitler by using certain of their secret agents in Germany, but they decided not to do so because they rightly concluded that Hitler had more value to them alive than dead.
All of this evidence points to the fact that deep within the psyche of evil men, they know that they are evil. This deep knowledge of their own evil causes them to be obsessed with death and destruction, of themselves and everyone around them. Their inner ability to construct false combinations causes a sense of worthlessness and emptiness within themselves which acts out to cause cruelty and destruction. This shows that all men secretly know that false combinations only produce nothingness. Yet, instead of humbly turning to God to plead for a cure for their sin, evil men, like Lucifer, adopt a terrible pride which causes them to believe that they can rid themselves of God's Goodness. In a kind of vicious cycle, their sin feeds their pride, which in turn, feeds their sin. This condition constitutes the mystery of evil which not even God can understand.
Near the end of the war, Hitler ordered that the entire infrastructure of Germany should be destroyed. An obedience to such an order would have left Germany completely destitute, and the people had better sense than to obey it. Hitler's reason for this order was that since Germany had failed him, then Germany deserved only destruction. This order revealed only a terrible pride and a will for utter destruction. This evidence points to the fact that Hitler never really loved Germany. Hitler actually loved only horror and destruction, of himself and his people.
The history of WWII in many ways corresponds with the history in the Bible. Bible history records that God used many methods to combat evil and maintain the balance between good and evil. For instance, I Kings chapter 22 records that God caused one evil force to go to war with another evil force. This tactic not only destroyed evil, but also spared the lives of many good people who did not have to fight. In this same history, God used lies to persuade the evil forces to fight each other. God possesses the ability to use false combinations, such as war and lies, to combat other false combinations in order to create good combinations that produce a desired result which is the destruction of evil. God used these same tactics in WWII when He caused one evil force, the Nazis, to fight against another evil force, the Communists, in order to destroy evil in such a way as also to protect the lives of millions of good people. God also inspired the Allies to invent various ingenious lies that hastened the destruction of the evil forces. Because of His great Love, God holds the power to change false combinations into good combinations. Read Proverbs 10: 12.
All of this proves that God has used extraordinary measures throughout the political history of the world to protect goodness from being completely destroyed by evil. Had God not done so, evil would have long ago completely overwhelmed goodness because of the inherent innocence within limited goodness. Limited cleverness beats limited innocence every time. God wins over evil because He possesses an infinite and omnipotent Love and Innocence which cannot be overwhelmed. God possesses an absolute cleverness which gives Him the power to change evil to good. Nevertheless, God has allowed evil to remain in history in order to maintain a balance between good and evil so that those who freely choose to put their faith in God's Goodness as displayed in the cross of Christ will prove beyond all doubt that God's Love holds the greatest value that can ever possibly exist.
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
THE GOOD versus THE EVIL chapter 4
The Record of the Test
Read: Proverbs 8: 36 II Timothy 3:16 Hebrews 11:6 (KJB)
God recorded the test of His Love and free will in His Word as inspired by the Holy Spirit. As such, this record has to be inerrant and infallible. In the English language, the King James Bible has proven itself to be the most accurate translation from the Masoretic Text, which is the original Word of God. All other English versions have been, to some extent, based on perversions, and therefore cannot be the inerrant Word of God. Even though many enemies of God have tried mightily through the ages to destroy the Word of God, God has preserved and protected His Word in English through His inspired translation of His Word into the King James Bible. All other versions of the English Bible are but additional attempts by the forces of evil to attempt to destroy the Word of God slowly over time.
God chose a particular race of people to write and to preserve His Word and to bring His Messiah into the world for the salvation of mankind. God did not directly explain either to Abraham or to Moses why He chose the Hebrew people to write and preserve His Word, and He did not explain to King David why He chose the tribe of Judah to bring His Messiah into the world. Moses did tell the Hebrews that God chose them because He loved them, but then God loves all people, and so this could be no special reason why God chose the Hebrews. The Hebrews do seem to be a people who are especially faithful to their traditions, and so many of them have diligently taught each generation the Word of God exactly as it was revealed to Moses and the prophets.
Several distinct and consistent themes run through the entire Word of God. The first and most important theme reveals that God promised to test His Love by sending a Messiah, a Savior who would be God in human form, and who would in Love sacrifice Himself to save humanity from being destroyed by original sin. Many examples of this theme occur directly and indirectly throughout the Old Testament. In Genesis 3:21, the Bible relates that God shed the blood of an animal and clothed Adam and Eve in its skin, demonstrating that God will protect humans by shedding blood and clothing them. Genesis 4:1-5 reveals that God commanded that a blood sacrifice must be offered in worship to God in order for a person to gain God's favor. In Genesis, chapter 22, God spared Isaac by substituting a ram for Abraham to sacrifice, which was an illustrative prophecy of the vicarious suffering of Christ. King David wrote about the sacrifice of the Messiah in Psalm 22, and the prophet Isaiah wrote about Him in Isaiah 53. Other examples could be given, but the consistent theme is that God Himself would come to earth and sacrifice Himself in man's place in order to save him from destruction by the sin within him. God would also rise from the dead to justify and to give eternal life to all who would believe in His Love and His Power to save them. Through the sacrifice of His Son, God would pass the test of His Love, and thereby dispell any possible doubt that might adhere to any of His future creations. In this way, God made any future possible rebellions impossible. All of God's future creations would know beyond all doubt that God's Love will do whatever is necessary to save His creations from all effects of false combinations connected to the destructive effects of absolute nothingness. God took the destructive effects of absolute nothingness upon Himself on a cruel cross and not only survived the sin and death, but actually conquered them. God's Love passed its greatest possible test.
Read Revelation 21:1-8
By passing its greatest possible test, God proved that Love can never be destroyed and that it always prevails and can never fail. Had God not so proved His Love, then a hint of doubt about His Power to prevail over evil would have infected all of His future creations. Evil can only be defined as false and uncreative combinations of God's Ideas, which in turn connects to absolute nothingness. All of God's intelligent creations possess access to limited copies of God's Infinite Ideas which also connects them to free will. Had God not proven the absolute Power of His Love, then a hint of uncertainty would have haunted all of His creations making them secretly wonder if God would eventually be destroyed by evil. Evil constitutes a kind of filthiness within God's creations. By passing the test of His Love, God accomplished the justification to recreate His universe and all of His creatures with a complete cleansing of all evil. God will completely purge all evil from all of His future creations, and will thoroughly destroy it by burning it forever in a lake of fire. All of this means that evil and absolute nothingness can never diminish God's Infinite Ideas in the least. God survived and conquered all of the worst effects of evil when He rose from the dead.
In order to ensure that His test would be fair, God determined to maintain a balance between good and evil throughout the history of mankind. God's Word reflects this balance. The Bible offers no proof of God's existence, but simply begins with an assumption of His existence. God could allow no religious, scientific or historical proof of His existence since any such proof would invalidate His test because it would give mankind no choice but to believe. A forced love always remains in doubt, but love freely given removes all doubt. Those who freely choose by faith to love God hold no doubt that God has all Power over evil. At times, they may sinfully doubt but in their faith they cannot doubt because their faith has been given to them by God. Just as God would never allow a proof of His existence, He also would never allow a proof of His nonexistence. Such a proof would cause despair among mankind. God has determined to maintain a balance between belief and unbelief in His fallen race. This balance would ensure that free will would be preserved, and that the great value of God's Love would be forever proved in its Almighty Power by the free choices of His believers to receive His grace through faith.
God's Word records that God used various methods to maintain this balance throughout history. For instance, whenever evil became so strong that it threatened to overwhelm the faithful and crush goodness out of the world, then God would act to destroy evil so completely that the balance would be restored. God sending the great flood and the fiery destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah are two such examples. God would also sometimes allow foreign powers to gain control over His people when they were backslidden in order to discipline them and cause them to repent and return to living in accord with their faith. God allowed Babylon to defeat Judea and control the Jews for 70 years. Those who repented were mostly the same as those who returned to rebuild the temple and reestablish the nation. But God would not allow His people to be destroyed as the story of the defeat of Haman in the book of Esther records. God's Word indicates that God never had a problem dealing with sin in the lives of His believers. Two such examples involved His discipline of the backslidden Samson and king David which effectively caused their repentence and return to obedience to Him. God never removes faith from His believers, but He can and will correct their sinful ways. God's wrath was deeply stirred against idol worship among His people because this sin indicated that evil was causing widespread unbelief which threatened to crush goodness out of God's world. God often used very powerful methods to combat this sin. God's Word and history itself demonstrate that God has succeeded in preserving this balance between good and evil right down to the present day.
Satan, being the god of this world, is the evil force behind all attempts to overwhelm goodness and destroy God's people. Satan believes that if he can obliterate goodness from the world, he will cause God's love to fail and then the world will belong solely to him. But God has successfully countered every move of Satan to destroy goodness and eliminate God's Love from the world. God's balance between goodness and evil still holds to this day. While at times, evil seems to be on the verge of taking control of the world, and at other times, goodness seems to be holding evil at bay; nevertheless, the balance always returns. God maintains the balance because He has determined that His Love will have a fair test.
If God had not preserved the miracle of this balance, evil would have completely crushed goodness a long time ago. Good people tend to be innocent. Evil people tend to be very cunning and clever. Clever and cunning beats innocence every time. Without God's balance, evil would now control the world.
God also uses a psychological factor to maintain the balance between good and evil. Evil carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction. Evil adheres to false combinations connected to absolute nothingness. This means evil equals the idea of nothing since all false combinations reduce to nothing. But this use of the idea of nothing also indirectly indicates a deeper nothingness; that is, an absolute nothingness, a nonexistence. God can only know the Infinite Being of Infinite Ideas. God knows absolutely nothing about nonexistence. Yet, in some mysterious way that even God cannot understand, absolute nothingness seems to hold some strange magnetic power within itself to attract those toward it who learn about false combinations. When Lucifer invented false combinations, a terrible vanity, an emptiness, entered into him which caused an obsession within him to rebel against God even though he had to know deep within himself that this would result in his own destruction. Even in order to enhance this strange obsession, Lucifer invented other false combinations such as: "excessive pleasure" and "excessive excitement." He did this in order to cause a kind of fall through bliss toward self-destruction. Satan invented other false combinations to deceive those who might realize that they were being drawn to self-destruction. Satan invented such false combinations as "excessive self-righteousness" and "idols" to redirect man's worship away from God and toward false combinations that they falsely believe will save them from self-destruction. Satan also invented false political and scientific systems to mislead some away from faith and worship of God. Even so, deep within all who adhere to false combinations lies a subconscious awareness that they are being powerfully drawn toward self-destruction and absolute nothingness. This deep feeling is that which the existentialists call "angst" or "dread" or "nausea." They refuse to realize the truth because they are infected with that same terrible obsession and pride that caused the downfall of Lucifer. But God possesses the power to cause some to awaken from their hypnotic obsession and return to the Truth.
The only remedy for such pride and obsession is the grace of God displayed in the Love of Christ through His sacrifice, death and resurrection. Jesus sacrificed Himself on the cross to wash away the sin of man with His own blood. In His death and burial, Jesus literally descended toward absolute nothingness in order to take man's sin away. Jesus rose from the dead to prove that His Love holds all power over sin and death; that is, over all false combinations and absolute nothingness. Christ can give His own eternal life to all who will abandon their obsession with self-destruction, and who will trust in Him as their only source of salvation.
Those obsessesd with self-destruction falsely believe that they can attain the nonexistence for which they so yearn. They can achieve self-destruction but not nonexistence. God's Infinite Ideas and all of His creations based on these Ideas can never disolve into absolute nothingness. Nonexistence can never diminish an Infinite Being in the least. Lucifer, in his self-deceptive pride, put his faith in the false power of false combinations to disolve at least some of God's Ideas into absolute nothingness. Lucifer falsely believed that if he could use false combinations to reduce some of God's Infinite Ideas, which is the Word of God which is God Himself, to absolute nothingness, then he could begin the destruction of God. God can only be Infinite. Should He ever become less than Infinite, He would cease to exist. Lucifer counted on reducing God's Infinite Being. This is what his temptation of Christ was all about. Lucifer could certainly achieve self-destruction, but not the nonexistence for which he subconsciously yearned. Satan has made himself into a false combination of God's Ideas. The false combination can be destroyed, but not God's Ideas. God can subject Satan, as a false combination, to a perpetual destruction in a lake of fire in order to nullify his ability to concoct false combinations. In this way, God can recreate a false combination and turn it into a good and useful combination that neutralizes sin in His universe. Also, God can never destroy Satan's consciousness which is based on one of God's Ideas, since to do so would mean that God would have to destroy a part of His Word which is Himself.
Read II Peter 3:13 Revelation 21:5
God will succeed in recreating a new heaven and earth, and a new mankind completely purged of all obsession with self-destruction and of all false combinations. God means to cleanse His universe of all of the filthiness of sin and "make all things new." God will use a form of destruction called "the lake of fire" in order to nullify all sin and obsession with self-destruction. God can nullify false combinations, but He can never nullify His own creations, all of which are based on His Infinite Ideas. God will recover all elements of His creations and use them in new useful creations, and all left-over false combinations, such as Satan, will be turned into good and useful combinations.
Romans 5: 12-21 Romans 7: 13-25
Since the garden of Eden, the mind of man has been divided into two wills; the will to live and the will to self-destruction. The will to live stems from the knowledge of the good, and the secret will to self-destruction stems from the knowledge of the evil. The knowledge of the good causes man to invent good systems that improve the quality of life. The knowledge of the evil causes man to engage in false systems already invented by Satan that tend to destroy life. One possible interpretation of the Word of God could call this helpless obsession with evil: "original sin."
Apparently, when man disobeyed God in the garden of Eden; a terrible emptiness which is an indirect awareness of absolute nothingness that hides behind the idea of nothing, entered the very being of man as it had Lucifer when he invented false combinations. At once, Adam and Eve realized that something had gone wrong within themselves, and so in shame for their marred condition, they tried to cover their nakedness with fig leaves. The knowledge of false combinations carries with it an indirect awareness that the nothingness inherent in false combinations hides a nonexistence, or absolute nothingness, that one has never before encountered. This knowledge then becomes ineluctably fixed in the mind, and as such, a part of one's being. This knowledge, which no one can shake off, then causes a terrible feeling of shame and emptiness. One secretly feels that one has become worthless and worthy only of destruction. However, Satan makes this self-destruction more palatable by combining it with excessive pride and pleasure. Nevertheless, this feeling has become an obsession with self-destruction.
This obsession manifests itself in various ways in the history of mankind. Many people practice false combinations connected to self-destruction such as "excessive pleasure" and "excessive excitement." Those who are addicted to illicit sex, drugs, gambling, thievery, gossip or any other sin, fall into this category. Even people who try to be good occasionally fall into such sins. Because the will to live usually overpowers the desire to kill oneself outright, sinners use the slow method which provides them at least some excessive pleasure and excitement on their way to self-destruction. Some of these sinners do eventually kill themselves because, over time, they find that the pleasures and excitement become muted, and the feelings of emptiness and worthlessness become more pronounced. Most of the others die from ruined health. In any case, one can conclude that those who practice these lifestyles must know, deep within themselves, that they possess a secret will for self-destruction.
Read I Peter 3:18 John 16:7-11 I John 1:7
The only cure for sin and the will to self-destruction is the sacrifice of Christ; His death, burial and resurrection. God loves mankind and He does not want man to practice self-destruction. Jesus came to earth from heaven to save man from his sin and self-destruction. This is the gospel of God. When a person hears or reads the gospel, then the Holy Spirit visits that person and makes him or her keenly aware that sin has become a part of their being, and they cannot get rid of it on their own, and that it will eventually destroy them. They learn that Christ, in His compassion, has already taken their sin and self-destruction on Himself on the cross, that He has suffered in their place, and that He rose from the dead to justify them, to give them His own eternal life, and victory over self-destruction. They learn that Jesus' blood that He shed on the cross can wash away all of their sin, and that the Spirit of Christ can enter their cleansed hearts to justify them and give them eternal life. They learn that the only way that they can escape from sin and self-destruction is through the power of the salvation that Christ has already provided for them.
Read John 12:32 John 6:37 John 10:14 Revelation 22: 17
When a person hears or reads the gospel and comes under the conviction of the Holy Spirit that the Word is true, then that person can choose to repent of their sins and accept the gospel by faith, or they can reject it and remain in their sins. God has given them free will. God has provided His written gospel to be read, and God has sent His preachers to preach it to the people in order to separate the believers from the unbelievers. Christ is the good shepherd who knows His sheep. Because of God's foreknowledge, many unbelievers claim that God never gave them a free choice since He always knew the choice they would make. They are quite wrong to make this charge against God. God will bring every one who reads or hears the gospel to a moment of decision. Of their own free will they can accept or reject the gospel. If they sincerely repent and accept the gospel by faith, then their salvation has been absolutely guaranteed by the Word of God. Read John 6:37. The guarantee that God will accept them as one of His sheep is also the guarantee that they possessed the free will to accept it by faith. They cannot charge God with rejecting them by His foreknowledge because God has guaranted their acceptance if they only choose to believe. If they reject the gospel, they cannot object that they did so, and blame God for it because He knew from eternity who His sheep are. They cannot blame God because they had only to choose to accept Christ by faith and God has already guaranteed that He knew them as His sheep from all eternity. God has given everyone free will and those who choose to reject Christ can never charge God with rejecting them by His foreknowledge because God can always point to their moment of decision and indicate that had they only chosen to accept Christ by faith, then God would have been obligated to accept them from eternity because of the guarantee of His Word.
Read: Proverbs 8: 36 II Timothy 3:16 Hebrews 11:6 (KJB)
God recorded the test of His Love and free will in His Word as inspired by the Holy Spirit. As such, this record has to be inerrant and infallible. In the English language, the King James Bible has proven itself to be the most accurate translation from the Masoretic Text, which is the original Word of God. All other English versions have been, to some extent, based on perversions, and therefore cannot be the inerrant Word of God. Even though many enemies of God have tried mightily through the ages to destroy the Word of God, God has preserved and protected His Word in English through His inspired translation of His Word into the King James Bible. All other versions of the English Bible are but additional attempts by the forces of evil to attempt to destroy the Word of God slowly over time.
God chose a particular race of people to write and to preserve His Word and to bring His Messiah into the world for the salvation of mankind. God did not directly explain either to Abraham or to Moses why He chose the Hebrew people to write and preserve His Word, and He did not explain to King David why He chose the tribe of Judah to bring His Messiah into the world. Moses did tell the Hebrews that God chose them because He loved them, but then God loves all people, and so this could be no special reason why God chose the Hebrews. The Hebrews do seem to be a people who are especially faithful to their traditions, and so many of them have diligently taught each generation the Word of God exactly as it was revealed to Moses and the prophets.
Several distinct and consistent themes run through the entire Word of God. The first and most important theme reveals that God promised to test His Love by sending a Messiah, a Savior who would be God in human form, and who would in Love sacrifice Himself to save humanity from being destroyed by original sin. Many examples of this theme occur directly and indirectly throughout the Old Testament. In Genesis 3:21, the Bible relates that God shed the blood of an animal and clothed Adam and Eve in its skin, demonstrating that God will protect humans by shedding blood and clothing them. Genesis 4:1-5 reveals that God commanded that a blood sacrifice must be offered in worship to God in order for a person to gain God's favor. In Genesis, chapter 22, God spared Isaac by substituting a ram for Abraham to sacrifice, which was an illustrative prophecy of the vicarious suffering of Christ. King David wrote about the sacrifice of the Messiah in Psalm 22, and the prophet Isaiah wrote about Him in Isaiah 53. Other examples could be given, but the consistent theme is that God Himself would come to earth and sacrifice Himself in man's place in order to save him from destruction by the sin within him. God would also rise from the dead to justify and to give eternal life to all who would believe in His Love and His Power to save them. Through the sacrifice of His Son, God would pass the test of His Love, and thereby dispell any possible doubt that might adhere to any of His future creations. In this way, God made any future possible rebellions impossible. All of God's future creations would know beyond all doubt that God's Love will do whatever is necessary to save His creations from all effects of false combinations connected to the destructive effects of absolute nothingness. God took the destructive effects of absolute nothingness upon Himself on a cruel cross and not only survived the sin and death, but actually conquered them. God's Love passed its greatest possible test.
Read Revelation 21:1-8
By passing its greatest possible test, God proved that Love can never be destroyed and that it always prevails and can never fail. Had God not so proved His Love, then a hint of doubt about His Power to prevail over evil would have infected all of His future creations. Evil can only be defined as false and uncreative combinations of God's Ideas, which in turn connects to absolute nothingness. All of God's intelligent creations possess access to limited copies of God's Infinite Ideas which also connects them to free will. Had God not proven the absolute Power of His Love, then a hint of uncertainty would have haunted all of His creations making them secretly wonder if God would eventually be destroyed by evil. Evil constitutes a kind of filthiness within God's creations. By passing the test of His Love, God accomplished the justification to recreate His universe and all of His creatures with a complete cleansing of all evil. God will completely purge all evil from all of His future creations, and will thoroughly destroy it by burning it forever in a lake of fire. All of this means that evil and absolute nothingness can never diminish God's Infinite Ideas in the least. God survived and conquered all of the worst effects of evil when He rose from the dead.
In order to ensure that His test would be fair, God determined to maintain a balance between good and evil throughout the history of mankind. God's Word reflects this balance. The Bible offers no proof of God's existence, but simply begins with an assumption of His existence. God could allow no religious, scientific or historical proof of His existence since any such proof would invalidate His test because it would give mankind no choice but to believe. A forced love always remains in doubt, but love freely given removes all doubt. Those who freely choose by faith to love God hold no doubt that God has all Power over evil. At times, they may sinfully doubt but in their faith they cannot doubt because their faith has been given to them by God. Just as God would never allow a proof of His existence, He also would never allow a proof of His nonexistence. Such a proof would cause despair among mankind. God has determined to maintain a balance between belief and unbelief in His fallen race. This balance would ensure that free will would be preserved, and that the great value of God's Love would be forever proved in its Almighty Power by the free choices of His believers to receive His grace through faith.
God's Word records that God used various methods to maintain this balance throughout history. For instance, whenever evil became so strong that it threatened to overwhelm the faithful and crush goodness out of the world, then God would act to destroy evil so completely that the balance would be restored. God sending the great flood and the fiery destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah are two such examples. God would also sometimes allow foreign powers to gain control over His people when they were backslidden in order to discipline them and cause them to repent and return to living in accord with their faith. God allowed Babylon to defeat Judea and control the Jews for 70 years. Those who repented were mostly the same as those who returned to rebuild the temple and reestablish the nation. But God would not allow His people to be destroyed as the story of the defeat of Haman in the book of Esther records. God's Word indicates that God never had a problem dealing with sin in the lives of His believers. Two such examples involved His discipline of the backslidden Samson and king David which effectively caused their repentence and return to obedience to Him. God never removes faith from His believers, but He can and will correct their sinful ways. God's wrath was deeply stirred against idol worship among His people because this sin indicated that evil was causing widespread unbelief which threatened to crush goodness out of God's world. God often used very powerful methods to combat this sin. God's Word and history itself demonstrate that God has succeeded in preserving this balance between good and evil right down to the present day.
Satan, being the god of this world, is the evil force behind all attempts to overwhelm goodness and destroy God's people. Satan believes that if he can obliterate goodness from the world, he will cause God's love to fail and then the world will belong solely to him. But God has successfully countered every move of Satan to destroy goodness and eliminate God's Love from the world. God's balance between goodness and evil still holds to this day. While at times, evil seems to be on the verge of taking control of the world, and at other times, goodness seems to be holding evil at bay; nevertheless, the balance always returns. God maintains the balance because He has determined that His Love will have a fair test.
If God had not preserved the miracle of this balance, evil would have completely crushed goodness a long time ago. Good people tend to be innocent. Evil people tend to be very cunning and clever. Clever and cunning beats innocence every time. Without God's balance, evil would now control the world.
God also uses a psychological factor to maintain the balance between good and evil. Evil carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction. Evil adheres to false combinations connected to absolute nothingness. This means evil equals the idea of nothing since all false combinations reduce to nothing. But this use of the idea of nothing also indirectly indicates a deeper nothingness; that is, an absolute nothingness, a nonexistence. God can only know the Infinite Being of Infinite Ideas. God knows absolutely nothing about nonexistence. Yet, in some mysterious way that even God cannot understand, absolute nothingness seems to hold some strange magnetic power within itself to attract those toward it who learn about false combinations. When Lucifer invented false combinations, a terrible vanity, an emptiness, entered into him which caused an obsession within him to rebel against God even though he had to know deep within himself that this would result in his own destruction. Even in order to enhance this strange obsession, Lucifer invented other false combinations such as: "excessive pleasure" and "excessive excitement." He did this in order to cause a kind of fall through bliss toward self-destruction. Satan invented other false combinations to deceive those who might realize that they were being drawn to self-destruction. Satan invented such false combinations as "excessive self-righteousness" and "idols" to redirect man's worship away from God and toward false combinations that they falsely believe will save them from self-destruction. Satan also invented false political and scientific systems to mislead some away from faith and worship of God. Even so, deep within all who adhere to false combinations lies a subconscious awareness that they are being powerfully drawn toward self-destruction and absolute nothingness. This deep feeling is that which the existentialists call "angst" or "dread" or "nausea." They refuse to realize the truth because they are infected with that same terrible obsession and pride that caused the downfall of Lucifer. But God possesses the power to cause some to awaken from their hypnotic obsession and return to the Truth.
The only remedy for such pride and obsession is the grace of God displayed in the Love of Christ through His sacrifice, death and resurrection. Jesus sacrificed Himself on the cross to wash away the sin of man with His own blood. In His death and burial, Jesus literally descended toward absolute nothingness in order to take man's sin away. Jesus rose from the dead to prove that His Love holds all power over sin and death; that is, over all false combinations and absolute nothingness. Christ can give His own eternal life to all who will abandon their obsession with self-destruction, and who will trust in Him as their only source of salvation.
Those obsessesd with self-destruction falsely believe that they can attain the nonexistence for which they so yearn. They can achieve self-destruction but not nonexistence. God's Infinite Ideas and all of His creations based on these Ideas can never disolve into absolute nothingness. Nonexistence can never diminish an Infinite Being in the least. Lucifer, in his self-deceptive pride, put his faith in the false power of false combinations to disolve at least some of God's Ideas into absolute nothingness. Lucifer falsely believed that if he could use false combinations to reduce some of God's Infinite Ideas, which is the Word of God which is God Himself, to absolute nothingness, then he could begin the destruction of God. God can only be Infinite. Should He ever become less than Infinite, He would cease to exist. Lucifer counted on reducing God's Infinite Being. This is what his temptation of Christ was all about. Lucifer could certainly achieve self-destruction, but not the nonexistence for which he subconsciously yearned. Satan has made himself into a false combination of God's Ideas. The false combination can be destroyed, but not God's Ideas. God can subject Satan, as a false combination, to a perpetual destruction in a lake of fire in order to nullify his ability to concoct false combinations. In this way, God can recreate a false combination and turn it into a good and useful combination that neutralizes sin in His universe. Also, God can never destroy Satan's consciousness which is based on one of God's Ideas, since to do so would mean that God would have to destroy a part of His Word which is Himself.
Read II Peter 3:13 Revelation 21:5
God will succeed in recreating a new heaven and earth, and a new mankind completely purged of all obsession with self-destruction and of all false combinations. God means to cleanse His universe of all of the filthiness of sin and "make all things new." God will use a form of destruction called "the lake of fire" in order to nullify all sin and obsession with self-destruction. God can nullify false combinations, but He can never nullify His own creations, all of which are based on His Infinite Ideas. God will recover all elements of His creations and use them in new useful creations, and all left-over false combinations, such as Satan, will be turned into good and useful combinations.
Romans 5: 12-21 Romans 7: 13-25
Since the garden of Eden, the mind of man has been divided into two wills; the will to live and the will to self-destruction. The will to live stems from the knowledge of the good, and the secret will to self-destruction stems from the knowledge of the evil. The knowledge of the good causes man to invent good systems that improve the quality of life. The knowledge of the evil causes man to engage in false systems already invented by Satan that tend to destroy life. One possible interpretation of the Word of God could call this helpless obsession with evil: "original sin."
Apparently, when man disobeyed God in the garden of Eden; a terrible emptiness which is an indirect awareness of absolute nothingness that hides behind the idea of nothing, entered the very being of man as it had Lucifer when he invented false combinations. At once, Adam and Eve realized that something had gone wrong within themselves, and so in shame for their marred condition, they tried to cover their nakedness with fig leaves. The knowledge of false combinations carries with it an indirect awareness that the nothingness inherent in false combinations hides a nonexistence, or absolute nothingness, that one has never before encountered. This knowledge then becomes ineluctably fixed in the mind, and as such, a part of one's being. This knowledge, which no one can shake off, then causes a terrible feeling of shame and emptiness. One secretly feels that one has become worthless and worthy only of destruction. However, Satan makes this self-destruction more palatable by combining it with excessive pride and pleasure. Nevertheless, this feeling has become an obsession with self-destruction.
This obsession manifests itself in various ways in the history of mankind. Many people practice false combinations connected to self-destruction such as "excessive pleasure" and "excessive excitement." Those who are addicted to illicit sex, drugs, gambling, thievery, gossip or any other sin, fall into this category. Even people who try to be good occasionally fall into such sins. Because the will to live usually overpowers the desire to kill oneself outright, sinners use the slow method which provides them at least some excessive pleasure and excitement on their way to self-destruction. Some of these sinners do eventually kill themselves because, over time, they find that the pleasures and excitement become muted, and the feelings of emptiness and worthlessness become more pronounced. Most of the others die from ruined health. In any case, one can conclude that those who practice these lifestyles must know, deep within themselves, that they possess a secret will for self-destruction.
Read I Peter 3:18 John 16:7-11 I John 1:7
The only cure for sin and the will to self-destruction is the sacrifice of Christ; His death, burial and resurrection. God loves mankind and He does not want man to practice self-destruction. Jesus came to earth from heaven to save man from his sin and self-destruction. This is the gospel of God. When a person hears or reads the gospel, then the Holy Spirit visits that person and makes him or her keenly aware that sin has become a part of their being, and they cannot get rid of it on their own, and that it will eventually destroy them. They learn that Christ, in His compassion, has already taken their sin and self-destruction on Himself on the cross, that He has suffered in their place, and that He rose from the dead to justify them, to give them His own eternal life, and victory over self-destruction. They learn that Jesus' blood that He shed on the cross can wash away all of their sin, and that the Spirit of Christ can enter their cleansed hearts to justify them and give them eternal life. They learn that the only way that they can escape from sin and self-destruction is through the power of the salvation that Christ has already provided for them.
Read John 12:32 John 6:37 John 10:14 Revelation 22: 17
When a person hears or reads the gospel and comes under the conviction of the Holy Spirit that the Word is true, then that person can choose to repent of their sins and accept the gospel by faith, or they can reject it and remain in their sins. God has given them free will. God has provided His written gospel to be read, and God has sent His preachers to preach it to the people in order to separate the believers from the unbelievers. Christ is the good shepherd who knows His sheep. Because of God's foreknowledge, many unbelievers claim that God never gave them a free choice since He always knew the choice they would make. They are quite wrong to make this charge against God. God will bring every one who reads or hears the gospel to a moment of decision. Of their own free will they can accept or reject the gospel. If they sincerely repent and accept the gospel by faith, then their salvation has been absolutely guaranteed by the Word of God. Read John 6:37. The guarantee that God will accept them as one of His sheep is also the guarantee that they possessed the free will to accept it by faith. They cannot charge God with rejecting them by His foreknowledge because God has guaranted their acceptance if they only choose to believe. If they reject the gospel, they cannot object that they did so, and blame God for it because He knew from eternity who His sheep are. They cannot blame God because they had only to choose to accept Christ by faith and God has already guaranteed that He knew them as His sheep from all eternity. God has given everyone free will and those who choose to reject Christ can never charge God with rejecting them by His foreknowledge because God can always point to their moment of decision and indicate that had they only chosen to accept Christ by faith, then God would have been obligated to accept them from eternity because of the guarantee of His Word.
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