Fresh from being tempted in the wilderness by Satan, it is recorded in Luke 4 that Jesus went home to Nazareth, to identify himself and his purpose there, only to be so rejected that they ran him out of town and sought to murder him by throwing him down from the cliffs Nazareth was built on.
To precipitate this, he read the verses from the prophet Isaiah, which said, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor."
He came to save people who are granted the grace to be aware of their decrepit spiritual state,
and have hearts and spirits broken and contrite as a result. The vast majority of people, especially those who knew him merely as the son of Joseph, possessed none of these attributes,
and Jesus knew it. So when he told them as much in terms they fully understood, they were infuriated, as the remainder of Luke 4 details.
The Lord identified the spiritual state of men to that of a captive cast into a dark prison, sightless and broken, bruised by iron chains.
It brings to mind the horrific fate of Zedekiah, last King of Judah, who, already in tributary bondage to Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, entered into alliance with the Pharaoh of Egypt and revolted without the blessing of the LORD, and the resulting siege and capture of Jerusalem led to his fleeing the city with his followers, only to be captured, brought before Nebuchadnezzar in
chains, and have his last sight be that of his sons being put to death before his own eyes were gouged out.
Zedekiah perished in that prison.
Having disobeyed the LORD through the word He gave from the prophet Jeremiah, he brought utter calamity to himself, his sons, and his entire kingdom. This is being repeated in various ways, in the lives of innumerable people, who hear the gospel of salvation, only to either refuse it or deceive themselves into thinking they need not submit their lives to receive it; because their pride has stolen their sight, and prevented them from seeing that their soul is destitute, that the thing they hold to their breast by the acceptance of the world is sin and therefore condemns their spirit to judgment and *death*. Thus they are hopelessly bound to their sin as with chains in the dark. Nor do they recognize the poverty of their spirit, as their sins have not broken their hearts, made possible because the parasite of pride is all that sustains them while the breath of life remains.
Jesus came for those who acknowledge the hopeless condition of their spirit and are crushed by the truth of it. He did not come for those who think they're all good as they are. He made this abundantly clear when in Luke 13 he was asked bluntly, "Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?"
"He said to them, “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’ “But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’ “Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’ “But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!’ “There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out." Luke 4:23-28
In short, Jesus answered in the affirmative.
THIS is the truth. Ignored. Inconvenient.
Painful.
TRUE.
It is not the lie you have been told, that everyone gets to heaven their own way. Nor the lie which says God loves and accepts you just the way you are. Nor the one that says we are to tolerate and accept the behaviors which the secular world tolerates and accepts, and that God, who changes with the times, does too.
These are lies wrought by the rulers of the darkness of this world, the spiritual wickedness in high places, led by the Accuser, he who walks about seeking whom he may devour before he himself receives judgment in everlasting fire. And all who exchange the truth of God for these lies will be impaled by them, for the lies leave them under the wrath and judgment of the LORD, who in spite of all claims to the contrary is unchanging, and makes mockery of "enlightened, modern understanding".
God is not fooled or impressed by any such claims; even those which deny Him.
"The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men. Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise
will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.” Woe to those who go to great depths to hide their plans from the LORD, who do their work in darkness and think, “Who sees us? Who will know?” You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, “He did not make me”? Can the pot say of the potter, “He knows nothing”?" Isaiah 29:13-16
"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the
intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate." 1 Corinthians 1:18-19
Receive the grace of the LORD and submit all that you are to it. Acknowledge the truth and permit it to break your spirit and replace your pride with humility and a contrite heart. Then the LORD will release you from your captivity, restore your sight, and set you free.
"To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?” Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed."John 8:31-36.
23 short verses from here, those who Jesus spoke to here took up stones to kill Him.
Be one who accepts and obeys the truth when convicted by it, rather than one whose heart is so hardened against it that they would sooner crush it to earth and remain blind and in the dark than submit and be transformed.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
The Subjugation of Forttopia
“Since its founding, the people of Forttopia considered themselves a sovereign nation. Then, suddenly, they were overwhelmed, and defeated…” –Cyril T. Jermin. My thanks to you, Elder Brother in the LORD, for speaking such edifying truth to me, and inspiring this writing.
It came to pass, that in the year in which men first took steps upon the surface of the Moon, the LORD saw fit to establish one of a countless number of nations founded upon the Earth, that its inhabitants would worship and glorify Him. Its large population nestled within mountains completely shrouded from view, for all its realm was brought to being by the LORD within the guise and form of a child. Where the child’s eyes fell, there did the gaze of the nation fall. What the child conceived in this thought, the nation also pondered. Where his stone heart experienced any emotion, the entire nation braced itself as that emotion washed over them in a flood.
The LORD created this nation, as all others He had made, to glorify Himself; and it assuredly would. For by its obedience and servitude to Him, it would bring Him glory by the way in which the nation used its gifts to that cause and was blessed by Him, while by its disobedience and rebellion it would bring Him glory in the way it would be utterly destroyed, as an example to every other nation, everywhere. In no conceivable ending of this nation would the LORD not point to it and say, “…that all may know that I am the LORD,” whether through its submission and service to Him, or its rebellion and service to itself.
This nation, called Forttopia, was and remains comprised of one central metropolis, girded about and supplied continuously by outlying cities that are in allegiance with it. The Metropolis was named in that realm for the child in whom it was made, Steven I, who was to be Steward over the nation in service of the One True King, the Son of God; but once the child grew in awareness, that which inhabits all humanity, sin, entered the water supply of the nation and, just as in all humanity, utterly corrupted every inhabitant from the Steward down. What was worse, it also thoroughly separated the child from the God who made him and doomed him to the undying wrath of the LORD’s judgment. Steven I kept the title of his stewardship, but by the corruption of sin, which could not be prevented by any force the nations can muster, (thanks to the first such nation of humanity’s founding, known as Adam,) the Steward and his entire realm were subverted by the deadly parasite that is the first child of sin; pride.
In this manner was the Metropolis renamed Pride, after the parasite which claimed the Steward and later every inhabitant within the walls. Its infection and resultant blinding influence spread unchecked, placing its numerous outlying cities in utter bondage through power of its corruption.
Greatest among those who contributed to Pride’s growth were cities which began as one name before taking on another once the parasite took hold. The Submitted Will, which was to be kept clean and be the habitation of the Spirit of the LORD, became the palace of the Steward in his corruption and called itself Free Will, and forsook all truth of being bondservant to the King. The city of Anger, a common, natural occurrence within the nations of humanity, grew powerful and became divided into three brethren cities, and through Pride became flooded with the self righteousness pouring from the palace gates, becoming known as Malice, Vengeance, and Wrath. The city of Interdependence was claimed by the parasite and went mad, denied its purpose and begat by Pride’s influence Greed, Lust, the shining city of Entitlement, and the host of sub-districts patrolled by their powerful armies, all named from the world without while feeding the insatiable drives of their inhabitants. In this manner, all the cities about Pride were subverted and twisted into self serving forms of themselves.
Were it not for the mountains which sheltered Forttopia, constructed from the prayers of the nations of the child’s forebears, their full submission to the LORD that made them, and all the suffering they bore for standing in the world as God’s children, Forttopia would have immediately joined the nations numbered greater than the stars; those which forsook the Absolute Truth of why they were created. It would have succumbed immediately to the blindness of Pride’s more metastasized stages; that which makes the nation utterly forget that it is from birth doomed to fall under the wrath of the LORD, who is holy and righteous and will not abide sin, and can only be saved by *Him*, that their life is not their own and it would fully account for its disobedience before the LORD once the heart of the child inevitably stopped beating, and its last breath was taken.
In spite of this, Pride began to issue edicts to govern the nation, and the Steward signed off on them, for the parasite made him blind to only that which Pride wanted him to see, and he was bound by those edicts, having no power to overcome the seductive euphoria of all which Pride fed him from the surrounding cities. The Steward, like the stewards of countless other nations, gave only lip service to the LORD his King, and was blind to the state of his rebellion, as Lust satisfied his flesh, and he found that he wielded self righteous vengeance and wrath with skill. So it was that when Pride issued the edict that it was not sin to obey some parts of the will of the LORD while ignoring others, Steven I only slightly flinched. And when Pride declared itself its own Sovereign Nation under God, and that God would understand his choice to do things in the way of Forttopia rather than of the King who created it, Steven I squelched the fear that he was now in rebellion with the LORD by not seeking the truth and denying any stirring to seek His face, receive the truth, and be subject to it. Pride went on whispering shameless lies to him, chief among them the one that declared that he was fine just as he is, and need submit nothing of himself to be saved.
That the majority of nations are made utterly blind to the truth escapes them even as it escaped Forttopia's Steward, for by the power of its euphoric infusion into the host pride preys upon, that host does not acknowledge that pride is a cancer, but buys the lie that it is a virtue, and thus are unaware that pride’s sole purpose is to bring that nation under the Second Death… that of being finally stripped of all blindness, forced to do what it refused in life and acknowledge all that God is as the Source of all life and worthy only of our abject worship and praise, while being denied that very Source by His judgment for refusing to acknowledge Him correctly when we yet walked the Earth. This state of unimaginable suffering and torment, called Hell, was made for Lucifer the Accuser, who was the first victim of pride, and all those who rebelled with him and followed him into madness. There demon and human alike will endure the suffering of all who do not receive the Grace to acknowledge and obey the LORD before they breathe their last.
And that suffering will have no end.
It so happened, by the design and will of the LORD God *only* and through merit neither of Forttopia nor its Steward, that the nation of Forttopia was visited by the only thing that could save it; The Perfect Grace and Mercy of the LORD.
The Mercy, the act of not receiving the death that the nation was doomed to and fully deserved because its Steward was made from birth nothing more than a wretched sinner, was brought about by the Grace…
The mightiest, most loving of all graces, for which was paid the highest of all prices…
The Grace, the act of receiving salvation and forgiveness that Steven I in no way deserved nor could ever earn through any work or effort of his own, was brought about by the innocent Blood of the very King who created all things with His Father, who loved the Steward and his befouled nation so much that He would not only put down His mantle of Kingship and become a child in flesh as the Steward, but would be crushed, tortured, and crucified on a Roman cross for him, whereby His act of love would purchase Steven I from the judgment of the Second Death and make him an adopted child of the Father.
So it came to pass, while Pride held dominion over the nation of Forttopia as it rested secure in its blind journey toward the eternal Judgment and Wrath of the LORD, that the Grace and Mercy of the Most High God fell upon the Steward, who had become a man and now had children of his own, and in his growing fear of failing them realized he did not know the Truth and would account for both not seeking it and not having delivered it to his children as it was delivered to him.
When it fell upon Steven I, his blindness was lifted, and the throne of the King which he occupied was discovered to be covered all about by the many tentacles of Pride, which had entered his own flesh and dwelt in every portion of his life, even behind doors he thought were shut, within rooms he never knew existed. The tentacles not only kept him blind, they fed him with the perverted strength of the surrounding cities, and bore crushing weight about his chest which he did not notice, as his heart was made entirely of stone. Now that the Grace of the LORD fell upon him, that heart was turned finally to one of flesh, and the eyes of Steven I befell the state of himself and all the nation of Forttopia he was made Steward over, and from the polished reflective surfaces of that which he dared call Free Will, Steven I saw himself with eyes free from the blindness of Pride, and wept.
And his weeping has not stopped, nor will it all the days of his life.
So it was that Pride did not anticipate the freeing of the Steward, who by Grace had the Dark Armor of lies, crafted by the city of Despair, replaced by the whole Armor of the LORD, which at once freed him from every caressing, poisonous tentacle leaching his spirit and feeding him sweet, deadly delusion.
The Spirit of the LORD then went out from the Steward and overwhelmed the armies who dwelt there, and they were worsted by the miracle of the LORD's salvation. The lie of Free Will was removed, and Pride for all its perceived might was brought low and broken, and the palace of the Steward was thus made Submitted Will forever.
Those few that remain of those forces which were corrupted by Pride and yet live, (and they are many, for the life of Forttopia while its heart yet beats is their life and will only fall once the body Forttopia inhabits returns to the dust,) were seized by panic and outrage, and fled from before the face of the Spirit of the LORD to the crevices below the mountains where the nation was founded. There they lie in wait, and at such times as the Steward fails in the vigilance he is called upon to exercise; to watch upon the walls and destroy without mercy the cloying, begging, twisted creatures that were fed by Pride and thus were cast out and seek re-entry in relentless desperation, they mass together and return to places they once knew, and by the same Grace and Mercy, the Steward is forgiven for the failure to fight, and supplies him strength to make war upon them and destroy all those he finds by the weapon the LORD supplies him, even the women and children, and their corpses are cast over the reclaimed walls in ruthless message to those that dwell without. These same yet return and hurl themselves, still hopelessly blind, at the gates of Forttopia, for their blindness has stolen all truth and its hearing from them entirely, and though they ask continually from outside why even those who appear innocuous among them may not return, they fail to comprehend that the King Himself has already answered them in His Word, and in their futile cries hear nothing He has said:
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” Matthew 7:21-23
“Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father’s name speak for me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” –John 10:25-30
“When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
“Then shall the King say to them on his right hand, Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungered, and you gave me meat: I was thirsty, and you gave me drink: I was a stranger, and you took me in: Naked, and you clothed me: I was sick, and you visited me: I was in prison, and you came to me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we you an hungered, and fed you? or thirsty, and gave you drink? When saw we you a stranger, and took you in? or naked, and clothed you? Or when saw we you sick, or in prison, and came to you? And the King shall answer and say to them, Truly I say to you, Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these my brothers, you have done it to me.
“Then shall he say also to them on the left hand, Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungered, and you gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and you took me not in: naked, and you clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and you visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we you an hungered, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister to you? Then shall he answer them, saying, Truly I say to you, Inasmuch as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.” –Matthew 25:31-46
Many who now read of the Subjugation of Forttopia will find it foolishness and regret the time they spent reading it; to whom I say "go in peace, and don't die." If you are among those who are aware of their Stewardship and are given the Grace and Mercy of the LORD, I implore you to fully acknowledge the King and yield to Him the throne of your life now, while the false illusion of Free Will yet exists and it would glorify the LORD to believe in Him, having not seen Him. I implore you to submit your life, destroy your pride, and receive the Savior as your own, to read his Word and own it for yourself, and join me in my fight to the death, for *we* are the blinded enemy, and it is we who must come before the LORD and die to Him, that our souls may live.
It came to pass, that in the year in which men first took steps upon the surface of the Moon, the LORD saw fit to establish one of a countless number of nations founded upon the Earth, that its inhabitants would worship and glorify Him. Its large population nestled within mountains completely shrouded from view, for all its realm was brought to being by the LORD within the guise and form of a child. Where the child’s eyes fell, there did the gaze of the nation fall. What the child conceived in this thought, the nation also pondered. Where his stone heart experienced any emotion, the entire nation braced itself as that emotion washed over them in a flood.
The LORD created this nation, as all others He had made, to glorify Himself; and it assuredly would. For by its obedience and servitude to Him, it would bring Him glory by the way in which the nation used its gifts to that cause and was blessed by Him, while by its disobedience and rebellion it would bring Him glory in the way it would be utterly destroyed, as an example to every other nation, everywhere. In no conceivable ending of this nation would the LORD not point to it and say, “…that all may know that I am the LORD,” whether through its submission and service to Him, or its rebellion and service to itself.
This nation, called Forttopia, was and remains comprised of one central metropolis, girded about and supplied continuously by outlying cities that are in allegiance with it. The Metropolis was named in that realm for the child in whom it was made, Steven I, who was to be Steward over the nation in service of the One True King, the Son of God; but once the child grew in awareness, that which inhabits all humanity, sin, entered the water supply of the nation and, just as in all humanity, utterly corrupted every inhabitant from the Steward down. What was worse, it also thoroughly separated the child from the God who made him and doomed him to the undying wrath of the LORD’s judgment. Steven I kept the title of his stewardship, but by the corruption of sin, which could not be prevented by any force the nations can muster, (thanks to the first such nation of humanity’s founding, known as Adam,) the Steward and his entire realm were subverted by the deadly parasite that is the first child of sin; pride.
In this manner was the Metropolis renamed Pride, after the parasite which claimed the Steward and later every inhabitant within the walls. Its infection and resultant blinding influence spread unchecked, placing its numerous outlying cities in utter bondage through power of its corruption.
Greatest among those who contributed to Pride’s growth were cities which began as one name before taking on another once the parasite took hold. The Submitted Will, which was to be kept clean and be the habitation of the Spirit of the LORD, became the palace of the Steward in his corruption and called itself Free Will, and forsook all truth of being bondservant to the King. The city of Anger, a common, natural occurrence within the nations of humanity, grew powerful and became divided into three brethren cities, and through Pride became flooded with the self righteousness pouring from the palace gates, becoming known as Malice, Vengeance, and Wrath. The city of Interdependence was claimed by the parasite and went mad, denied its purpose and begat by Pride’s influence Greed, Lust, the shining city of Entitlement, and the host of sub-districts patrolled by their powerful armies, all named from the world without while feeding the insatiable drives of their inhabitants. In this manner, all the cities about Pride were subverted and twisted into self serving forms of themselves.
Were it not for the mountains which sheltered Forttopia, constructed from the prayers of the nations of the child’s forebears, their full submission to the LORD that made them, and all the suffering they bore for standing in the world as God’s children, Forttopia would have immediately joined the nations numbered greater than the stars; those which forsook the Absolute Truth of why they were created. It would have succumbed immediately to the blindness of Pride’s more metastasized stages; that which makes the nation utterly forget that it is from birth doomed to fall under the wrath of the LORD, who is holy and righteous and will not abide sin, and can only be saved by *Him*, that their life is not their own and it would fully account for its disobedience before the LORD once the heart of the child inevitably stopped beating, and its last breath was taken.
In spite of this, Pride began to issue edicts to govern the nation, and the Steward signed off on them, for the parasite made him blind to only that which Pride wanted him to see, and he was bound by those edicts, having no power to overcome the seductive euphoria of all which Pride fed him from the surrounding cities. The Steward, like the stewards of countless other nations, gave only lip service to the LORD his King, and was blind to the state of his rebellion, as Lust satisfied his flesh, and he found that he wielded self righteous vengeance and wrath with skill. So it was that when Pride issued the edict that it was not sin to obey some parts of the will of the LORD while ignoring others, Steven I only slightly flinched. And when Pride declared itself its own Sovereign Nation under God, and that God would understand his choice to do things in the way of Forttopia rather than of the King who created it, Steven I squelched the fear that he was now in rebellion with the LORD by not seeking the truth and denying any stirring to seek His face, receive the truth, and be subject to it. Pride went on whispering shameless lies to him, chief among them the one that declared that he was fine just as he is, and need submit nothing of himself to be saved.
That the majority of nations are made utterly blind to the truth escapes them even as it escaped Forttopia's Steward, for by the power of its euphoric infusion into the host pride preys upon, that host does not acknowledge that pride is a cancer, but buys the lie that it is a virtue, and thus are unaware that pride’s sole purpose is to bring that nation under the Second Death… that of being finally stripped of all blindness, forced to do what it refused in life and acknowledge all that God is as the Source of all life and worthy only of our abject worship and praise, while being denied that very Source by His judgment for refusing to acknowledge Him correctly when we yet walked the Earth. This state of unimaginable suffering and torment, called Hell, was made for Lucifer the Accuser, who was the first victim of pride, and all those who rebelled with him and followed him into madness. There demon and human alike will endure the suffering of all who do not receive the Grace to acknowledge and obey the LORD before they breathe their last.
And that suffering will have no end.
It so happened, by the design and will of the LORD God *only* and through merit neither of Forttopia nor its Steward, that the nation of Forttopia was visited by the only thing that could save it; The Perfect Grace and Mercy of the LORD.
The Mercy, the act of not receiving the death that the nation was doomed to and fully deserved because its Steward was made from birth nothing more than a wretched sinner, was brought about by the Grace…
The mightiest, most loving of all graces, for which was paid the highest of all prices…
The Grace, the act of receiving salvation and forgiveness that Steven I in no way deserved nor could ever earn through any work or effort of his own, was brought about by the innocent Blood of the very King who created all things with His Father, who loved the Steward and his befouled nation so much that He would not only put down His mantle of Kingship and become a child in flesh as the Steward, but would be crushed, tortured, and crucified on a Roman cross for him, whereby His act of love would purchase Steven I from the judgment of the Second Death and make him an adopted child of the Father.
So it came to pass, while Pride held dominion over the nation of Forttopia as it rested secure in its blind journey toward the eternal Judgment and Wrath of the LORD, that the Grace and Mercy of the Most High God fell upon the Steward, who had become a man and now had children of his own, and in his growing fear of failing them realized he did not know the Truth and would account for both not seeking it and not having delivered it to his children as it was delivered to him.
When it fell upon Steven I, his blindness was lifted, and the throne of the King which he occupied was discovered to be covered all about by the many tentacles of Pride, which had entered his own flesh and dwelt in every portion of his life, even behind doors he thought were shut, within rooms he never knew existed. The tentacles not only kept him blind, they fed him with the perverted strength of the surrounding cities, and bore crushing weight about his chest which he did not notice, as his heart was made entirely of stone. Now that the Grace of the LORD fell upon him, that heart was turned finally to one of flesh, and the eyes of Steven I befell the state of himself and all the nation of Forttopia he was made Steward over, and from the polished reflective surfaces of that which he dared call Free Will, Steven I saw himself with eyes free from the blindness of Pride, and wept.
And his weeping has not stopped, nor will it all the days of his life.
So it was that Pride did not anticipate the freeing of the Steward, who by Grace had the Dark Armor of lies, crafted by the city of Despair, replaced by the whole Armor of the LORD, which at once freed him from every caressing, poisonous tentacle leaching his spirit and feeding him sweet, deadly delusion.
The Spirit of the LORD then went out from the Steward and overwhelmed the armies who dwelt there, and they were worsted by the miracle of the LORD's salvation. The lie of Free Will was removed, and Pride for all its perceived might was brought low and broken, and the palace of the Steward was thus made Submitted Will forever.
Those few that remain of those forces which were corrupted by Pride and yet live, (and they are many, for the life of Forttopia while its heart yet beats is their life and will only fall once the body Forttopia inhabits returns to the dust,) were seized by panic and outrage, and fled from before the face of the Spirit of the LORD to the crevices below the mountains where the nation was founded. There they lie in wait, and at such times as the Steward fails in the vigilance he is called upon to exercise; to watch upon the walls and destroy without mercy the cloying, begging, twisted creatures that were fed by Pride and thus were cast out and seek re-entry in relentless desperation, they mass together and return to places they once knew, and by the same Grace and Mercy, the Steward is forgiven for the failure to fight, and supplies him strength to make war upon them and destroy all those he finds by the weapon the LORD supplies him, even the women and children, and their corpses are cast over the reclaimed walls in ruthless message to those that dwell without. These same yet return and hurl themselves, still hopelessly blind, at the gates of Forttopia, for their blindness has stolen all truth and its hearing from them entirely, and though they ask continually from outside why even those who appear innocuous among them may not return, they fail to comprehend that the King Himself has already answered them in His Word, and in their futile cries hear nothing He has said:
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” Matthew 7:21-23
“Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father’s name speak for me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” –John 10:25-30
“When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
“Then shall the King say to them on his right hand, Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungered, and you gave me meat: I was thirsty, and you gave me drink: I was a stranger, and you took me in: Naked, and you clothed me: I was sick, and you visited me: I was in prison, and you came to me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we you an hungered, and fed you? or thirsty, and gave you drink? When saw we you a stranger, and took you in? or naked, and clothed you? Or when saw we you sick, or in prison, and came to you? And the King shall answer and say to them, Truly I say to you, Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these my brothers, you have done it to me.
“Then shall he say also to them on the left hand, Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungered, and you gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and you took me not in: naked, and you clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and you visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we you an hungered, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister to you? Then shall he answer them, saying, Truly I say to you, Inasmuch as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.” –Matthew 25:31-46
Many who now read of the Subjugation of Forttopia will find it foolishness and regret the time they spent reading it; to whom I say "go in peace, and don't die." If you are among those who are aware of their Stewardship and are given the Grace and Mercy of the LORD, I implore you to fully acknowledge the King and yield to Him the throne of your life now, while the false illusion of Free Will yet exists and it would glorify the LORD to believe in Him, having not seen Him. I implore you to submit your life, destroy your pride, and receive the Savior as your own, to read his Word and own it for yourself, and join me in my fight to the death, for *we* are the blinded enemy, and it is we who must come before the LORD and die to Him, that our souls may live.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
The Grace To Acknowledge Him
I was afraid.
Of a painful death. Of dying in my sins. Of failing to teach my children to fear God and give glory to Him. Of voices and sounds in the dark. No security was tight enough to satisfy me. No defense impregnable enough. No hill high enough to permit me to prepare enough in advance. No response plan sufficient enough to permit me to relax. My world was rife with traitors, thieves, and murderers without souls, and nothing kept me from feeling truly exposed, unprotected, and worst of all, powerless to save those I love.
The truth is that I can prepare for possibilities all I like, but I am not Superman. I can lay down my life to save my family. I can insure my life so that they will not unduly suffer should I flee this coil before they do. But there is no security like that which God offers those who hear and obey His voice.
This security is within the Scriptures. While some of its verses truly speak for themselves, we still must discern and obey the Living Word to hear it resonate within our hearts.
One problem I have seen is that we use too many of them flippantly in song and misrepresented verse without truly thinking on the meaning of what we are reading; without truly absorbing the nutrients in it that are meant to strengthen our discipleship. I have certainly done this more times than I can count.
One oft-repeated verse in particular speaks clearly on how to be free from all semblance of insecurity.
"Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.
Do not be wise in your own eyes;
Fear the LORD and depart from evil.
It will be health to your flesh,
And strength to your bones." -Proverbs 3:5-8
"In all your ways acknowledge Him."
ac·knowl·edge verb \ik-ˈnä-lij, ak-\
transitive verb (for it to be transitive, the verb "acknowledge" must have a direct object in order to be correctly used in grammar, so to illustrate I will insert the object of the verb as it applies to this discussion.)
1: to recognize the rights, authority, or status of HIM
2: to disclose knowledge of or agreement with HIM
3a; to express gratitude or obligation for HIM
3b: to take notice of HIM
3c: to make known the receipt of HIM
4: to recognize HIM as genuine or valid
Unfortunately, no human being with the wheel of their life firmly in their own grip, driving its course where they see fit, will submit to this. No person living, the majority leading what I call "La Vida Invictus"--soul unconquered, bloody but unbowed, defiant of both the narrow gate and the final judgment in the name of holding captaincy of ship and mastery of soul--will do this and receive the certain gift God offers. We *want* that security, that surety, without paying the price necessary for it. We would prefer to continue to operate under the illusion that *we* are in control, that we live free and unconquered when we are all in truth slaves. Yes, slaves. We live as bond-servants to one of two conditions; to either our sin which sires death and separates us from God, or the One who ransoms us from it--there are no other states of being. We serve ourselves in the iron chains of our sin, or we serve the Savior who frees us from the wages of sin and tells us that to follow Him is to suffer now for His sake and receive eternal life. We prefer the postmodern convenience of no suffering, no knowable truth, no difficult choices to obey, coming to God as though He were not Sovereign; as though He were not the Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth and all the things therein, but a faerie tale genie, where we perform a few painless rituals and expect results in accordance with our wishes; where *we* are called "master" and are required to submit or change nothing of ourselves.
We want it *our* way, steeped in our hubris, but this is not *The* Way. So while we can want it to conform to our image of fairness and acceptability all we like; the Absolute Truth is unchanging. Jesus is The Only Way. *He* is the one called Master, and obedience to Him elevates us to adopted children of the same Father He has. Everlasting life is not something we all reach in our own way, but *only* through acceptance of and obedience to Him in full.
In FULL.
"In *all* your ways acknowledge Him."
This is explicit. It does not say "some of your ways", or even "most of your ways", with some reserved for yourself;
on your iPod...
on your computer's harddrive...
on your phone's text messages...
in your predispositions which the world labels acceptable and which God calls sin...
in a destructive habit that you do because you think it hurts no one but yourself...
in a "guilty pleasure", the guilt of which is apparently insufficient by itself to induce any change...
in your mind, and how you think...
in your heart and how you feel...
Do you desire true assurance, not only for the brief amount of time which spans the dates which will be marked on your headstone, but for the eternal existence for which this is the beginning? Do you want your path directed by the Sovereign God?
ACKNOWLEDGE HIM IN EVERYTHING AND RESERVE NOTHING.
Yield to Him your pride, because He has authority over it.
Yield to Him your habits, because He has the rights to them.
Yield to Him your pain, because it shows you have taken proper notice of Him.
Yield to Him your anger, because it is your obligation to Him.
Yield to Him your lusts, because you owe them to Him.
YIELD to the Father ALL that you are, because it shows that you have received Him. Recognize that you are not your own, that the LORD alone has valid claim over the sum total of your parts.
The NKJV notes on this proverb of King Solomon clarifies this way;
"The words *trust in the LORD* echo the command of Deuteronomy 6:5 to love God with all our being. The verb *trust* is complimented by the verb "lean". Trusting in God is a conscious dependence on God, much like leaning on a tree for support. The idea is reinforced by the command to *acknowledge Him*, which means to observe Him and get to know Him in the process of living. In doing so, a person finds time and again that God smooths out paths."
We may hear this and ask, "When I'm done with all this 'yielding' of myself, what is left that is mine? What's left for me?"
Nothing. And EVERYTHING!
Yes, this is completely unpopular. Yes, the world will hate you for it, because it first hated the Master for it, and by the sheer magnitude of its pride can not begin to even comprehend it; receiving the grace to relinquish claim of our own lives. It can not be done partially, either. This can not be half-stepped.
If I choose to stick my chin out in a fit of pride and take the wheel for myself, only to get upset when I end up lost in the wrong part of life, I have disobeyed God and require repentance for my failure to trust Him.
If you see an oncoming trial in the road of your life which you must *obey* Him through, and opt instead to grab the wheel because as much as you would *like* to trust God, you trust *yourself* more, you can't get angry with Him when you end up in a ditch.
This is the requirement for reasonably safe travel through life; to have your path directed by God, acknowledge Him in all your ways. It involves COST of all the *temporary* stuff that is labeled good or acceptable by popular opinion, stuff which we routinely claim as our right to possess or our right to be, and is ultimately worthless, and receive instead the gifts of all that is *eternal*, and is good in *truth*, regardless of *any* opinion; undeserved gifts in place of the judgment and death our sin has already earned us.
"Then He said to them all, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost?"" Luke 9:23-25
I *must* accept and cling to the grace to trust and truly acknowledge the Father in *all* my ways, if I want my paths directed by Him. If I want to truly live forever, I must deny my humanity, with all its delusions of supremacy, and *submit* them to Him in full, even if it means my life. So must we all, because there is only one God, and we are not Him.
"Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth--to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people--saying with a loud voice, "Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who has made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water."" Revelation 14:6-7
The pain and loneliness of separation from what the world calls acceptable is nothing to the agony and despair of being under the everlasting wrath of God.
So be it.
Of a painful death. Of dying in my sins. Of failing to teach my children to fear God and give glory to Him. Of voices and sounds in the dark. No security was tight enough to satisfy me. No defense impregnable enough. No hill high enough to permit me to prepare enough in advance. No response plan sufficient enough to permit me to relax. My world was rife with traitors, thieves, and murderers without souls, and nothing kept me from feeling truly exposed, unprotected, and worst of all, powerless to save those I love.
The truth is that I can prepare for possibilities all I like, but I am not Superman. I can lay down my life to save my family. I can insure my life so that they will not unduly suffer should I flee this coil before they do. But there is no security like that which God offers those who hear and obey His voice.
This security is within the Scriptures. While some of its verses truly speak for themselves, we still must discern and obey the Living Word to hear it resonate within our hearts.
One problem I have seen is that we use too many of them flippantly in song and misrepresented verse without truly thinking on the meaning of what we are reading; without truly absorbing the nutrients in it that are meant to strengthen our discipleship. I have certainly done this more times than I can count.
One oft-repeated verse in particular speaks clearly on how to be free from all semblance of insecurity.
"Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.
Do not be wise in your own eyes;
Fear the LORD and depart from evil.
It will be health to your flesh,
And strength to your bones." -Proverbs 3:5-8
"In all your ways acknowledge Him."
ac·knowl·edge verb \ik-ˈnä-lij, ak-\
transitive verb (for it to be transitive, the verb "acknowledge" must have a direct object in order to be correctly used in grammar, so to illustrate I will insert the object of the verb as it applies to this discussion.)
1: to recognize the rights, authority, or status of HIM
2: to disclose knowledge of or agreement with HIM
3a; to express gratitude or obligation for HIM
3b: to take notice of HIM
3c: to make known the receipt of HIM
4: to recognize HIM as genuine or valid
Unfortunately, no human being with the wheel of their life firmly in their own grip, driving its course where they see fit, will submit to this. No person living, the majority leading what I call "La Vida Invictus"--soul unconquered, bloody but unbowed, defiant of both the narrow gate and the final judgment in the name of holding captaincy of ship and mastery of soul--will do this and receive the certain gift God offers. We *want* that security, that surety, without paying the price necessary for it. We would prefer to continue to operate under the illusion that *we* are in control, that we live free and unconquered when we are all in truth slaves. Yes, slaves. We live as bond-servants to one of two conditions; to either our sin which sires death and separates us from God, or the One who ransoms us from it--there are no other states of being. We serve ourselves in the iron chains of our sin, or we serve the Savior who frees us from the wages of sin and tells us that to follow Him is to suffer now for His sake and receive eternal life. We prefer the postmodern convenience of no suffering, no knowable truth, no difficult choices to obey, coming to God as though He were not Sovereign; as though He were not the Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth and all the things therein, but a faerie tale genie, where we perform a few painless rituals and expect results in accordance with our wishes; where *we* are called "master" and are required to submit or change nothing of ourselves.
We want it *our* way, steeped in our hubris, but this is not *The* Way. So while we can want it to conform to our image of fairness and acceptability all we like; the Absolute Truth is unchanging. Jesus is The Only Way. *He* is the one called Master, and obedience to Him elevates us to adopted children of the same Father He has. Everlasting life is not something we all reach in our own way, but *only* through acceptance of and obedience to Him in full.
In FULL.
"In *all* your ways acknowledge Him."
This is explicit. It does not say "some of your ways", or even "most of your ways", with some reserved for yourself;
on your iPod...
on your computer's harddrive...
on your phone's text messages...
in your predispositions which the world labels acceptable and which God calls sin...
in a destructive habit that you do because you think it hurts no one but yourself...
in a "guilty pleasure", the guilt of which is apparently insufficient by itself to induce any change...
in your mind, and how you think...
in your heart and how you feel...
Do you desire true assurance, not only for the brief amount of time which spans the dates which will be marked on your headstone, but for the eternal existence for which this is the beginning? Do you want your path directed by the Sovereign God?
ACKNOWLEDGE HIM IN EVERYTHING AND RESERVE NOTHING.
Yield to Him your pride, because He has authority over it.
Yield to Him your habits, because He has the rights to them.
Yield to Him your pain, because it shows you have taken proper notice of Him.
Yield to Him your anger, because it is your obligation to Him.
Yield to Him your lusts, because you owe them to Him.
YIELD to the Father ALL that you are, because it shows that you have received Him. Recognize that you are not your own, that the LORD alone has valid claim over the sum total of your parts.
The NKJV notes on this proverb of King Solomon clarifies this way;
"The words *trust in the LORD* echo the command of Deuteronomy 6:5 to love God with all our being. The verb *trust* is complimented by the verb "lean". Trusting in God is a conscious dependence on God, much like leaning on a tree for support. The idea is reinforced by the command to *acknowledge Him*, which means to observe Him and get to know Him in the process of living. In doing so, a person finds time and again that God smooths out paths."
We may hear this and ask, "When I'm done with all this 'yielding' of myself, what is left that is mine? What's left for me?"
Nothing. And EVERYTHING!
Yes, this is completely unpopular. Yes, the world will hate you for it, because it first hated the Master for it, and by the sheer magnitude of its pride can not begin to even comprehend it; receiving the grace to relinquish claim of our own lives. It can not be done partially, either. This can not be half-stepped.
If I choose to stick my chin out in a fit of pride and take the wheel for myself, only to get upset when I end up lost in the wrong part of life, I have disobeyed God and require repentance for my failure to trust Him.
If you see an oncoming trial in the road of your life which you must *obey* Him through, and opt instead to grab the wheel because as much as you would *like* to trust God, you trust *yourself* more, you can't get angry with Him when you end up in a ditch.
This is the requirement for reasonably safe travel through life; to have your path directed by God, acknowledge Him in all your ways. It involves COST of all the *temporary* stuff that is labeled good or acceptable by popular opinion, stuff which we routinely claim as our right to possess or our right to be, and is ultimately worthless, and receive instead the gifts of all that is *eternal*, and is good in *truth*, regardless of *any* opinion; undeserved gifts in place of the judgment and death our sin has already earned us.
"Then He said to them all, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost?"" Luke 9:23-25
I *must* accept and cling to the grace to trust and truly acknowledge the Father in *all* my ways, if I want my paths directed by Him. If I want to truly live forever, I must deny my humanity, with all its delusions of supremacy, and *submit* them to Him in full, even if it means my life. So must we all, because there is only one God, and we are not Him.
"Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth--to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people--saying with a loud voice, "Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who has made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water."" Revelation 14:6-7
The pain and loneliness of separation from what the world calls acceptable is nothing to the agony and despair of being under the everlasting wrath of God.
So be it.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
The Grace To Submit (Part 1)
I am a corrupt, pathetically selfish creature, and of my own power there is absolutely nothing I can do about it except utterly fail, and pay the wages of my sin.
David knew this to be true of every person, and said as much more than once.
"The LORD looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one." Psalm 14:2-3
Paul expounded further in his letter to the Romans, combining the verses of David with others of his Psalms, as well as Ecclesiastes and the prophet Isaiah.
"As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” “Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.” “The poison of vipers is on their lips.” “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”" Romans 3:10-18
My corruption could not be helped, being the reality of all human condition from the womb; our varying stages of denial notwithstanding. My selfishness, fueled by pride the size of a gas giant, has the power to reach into the substance of which I am made, take hold of my inherited stubborn tenacity, put it to the flame of whatever the lust du jour is, and craft such mind-numbing defiance and rebellion of what I know to be right and just, that I become a living caricature of what Paul wrote to Titus regarding those who routinely reject truth:
"To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted. They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good." Titus 1:15-16
I am here to tell you that submitting my will to the Lord only comes from *His* grace, because my corruption will not permit me to make the choice by myself. Apart from God, *self* preservation thinks the very idea is utterly foolish, and weak besides.
But this is *also* part of the plan of God, and identifies self-preservation as a feature of the world, rather than of the Spirit.
"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength." 1 Corinthians 1:18-25
The grace of God, given to me by His mercy; to believe that He is the LORD and His only Son died for my sin, to acknowledge Him now in my thoughts and feelings as well as my words and deeds, to submit my will and pride in obedience to Him, is *the ONLY thing* that changes my condition. *Not* my desire to be something other than what I am. *Not* the strength of my will or determination. *Not* my revulsion in the face of my failures. The grace and mercy of Yahweh, His choice to transplant my heart of stone with one of flesh, and love and adopt me IN SPITE OF ME, is the only reason why I can write now free from it all.
My most recent example of this was my submersion into World of Warcraft. It lasted almost 5 years, and could have wrecked everything that matters most in my life.
I know what some of you are likely thinking at that last sentence; affixing it with:
"How pathetic. What manner of fool falls prey to a video game?"
You'd be surprised.
The close resemblance to the game's posted disclaimer warning players to do other things with their time, to that on a cigarette package warning the purchaser that smoking their product can kill them, is no coincidence.
It is a product designed to not only attract the right paying client, but bind them to it so that the payment continues in ongoing subscription format. Anyone with a large inner fantasy world, as I have always harbored, is easily drawn to its seduction of pursuing wealth and power, all within a steeply detailed world of well crafted lore; of noble heroes and richly flawed villains in all their warmongering glory.
There is little reason to spend much time bothering with the details of life when one can be submerged beneath the sea of their own fantasy for as long as they can hold their breath beneath the waves. One glance at the news will show you that here are people who never come up for air before it is too late. The game is quite literally filled with people chained to its seductive power by the millions, pursuing its reality-defying, ego-satisfying goals at virtually all ages, in virtually all cultures, encompassing the globe. Those who play it seeking any form of efficiency and success must pour time into it like fresh water into a bottomless, thirst-inducing pit, always taking more than it gives. One surfaces from beneath its seductive waves and takes a breath only to discover that what they presumed was a few moments was actually several hours, and time and events have moved without their awareness or presence (and all the consequences therein)... and this life-draining game is the pursuit of choice for literally millions of people.
I was one of them.
I can think of no more innocuous-seeming death than that which the game offers.
It binds itself amorphously to the paying host with their own permission, injects ego-soothing visions of beauty and power into it which they crave, and removes their very presence willingly from all that is right in front of them. It is an escape that lasts as long as the power, game servers, and internet connections are up and running. Pauses for food and sleep become irritating distractions, as are any and all attempts by other people to interact with them. It is the refuge for those who have no relationships with people, and the destroyer of relationships for those who still have them.
It is yet one more modified weapon formed from the lust of the eyes; one of the same, tired, yet grossly effective three weapons from the arsenal of the Accuser. This version of it dulls the pain receptors just enough for the player to feel nothing while it carves their life to shreds.
Such is my weakness that I succumbed to it for 5 years. Such was my dumb luck that my family stayed together through it.
In July of 2010, I was given the grace from the Father to recognize it among the hooks that felt so wonderful in my flesh as they were killing me, observe how it was going to destroy everything I held dear, starting with my relationships with my wife and children and spreading outward from there, and forcibly remove them all. The sum total of all my efforts, all the characters I had created and reached the pinnacle of self-sufficient might over the course of years, were destroyed in a scorched earth manner. I erased them all. I cancelled my subscription and deleted the software from my computers. I emailed the proof of cancellation to my wife, who had grown so tired of looking at the side of my head while playing the game that she could only sit in shock at what I had done.
The story should end there. But it doesn't.
This is because the Grace To Submit, as invaluable and necessary as the gift of salvation, is just the beginning of the requisite effort to enter the narrow door.
The Submission Must Never Stop.
No desire or act of will can be separate from God after that.
We who follow Christ must be relentless, and even ruthless, in our submission and obedience because that which we submit is founded in corruption and therefore *will* come again like a weed, and use whatever remnant of pride we yet harbor to become our *choice* to disobey God and obey our own will. The Accuser won't stop cajoling us to make the choice which sides with rebellion until he is finally destroyed. He will ask us, just as he asked Eve, "Did God *truly* say...?" We hear those serpentine whispers because in the face of the truth, our nature, whatever form it takes, be it quantifiable through DNA or simple accustomed preference, will reject God utterly when we do not deem it important to submit to Him and obey.
We are given the equipment to do this successfully.
We just have to put it on. The last suit we'll ever wear.
The Armor of God, detailed in Ephesians 6, preserves the new heart of flesh the LORD gives His adopted children, and maintains the sanctification the follower of Christ is gifted with... but we have to faithfully equip it every second of our lives. Take one step without all of the pieces securely in place... make one stupid decision to use a shield made of something *men* crafted instead of the Shield of Faith... select a belt made of your inherent desires rather than the Belt of Truth, and know what it is to bring a knife to a gunfight. We not only lose, we look exceptionally retarded doing it.
I told you all of that to provide the proper background for the story of how I did that very thing. I am a work in progress, so I have and continue to do it in more ways than this, but while this is just as poignant in significance, it is also among the least humiliating.
The tale is brief, in comparison with the background. 6 months after I quit, a friend I have not seen in 26 years told me he played the game and invited me to join him. I told him I had quit and why, which he respected, but left it with "Should you choose to return, you know where to find me."
Now, had I been dressed properly, I would have told the *desire to play*, which spoke up now with numerous, very reasonable excuses as to how I could do it with moderation, to shut up and die, and run it through with the Sword I was also given. I would have told it that my life is not my own, having been delivered from the slavery of sin and death to the servitude and adopted sonship of God, and that the choice to partake of that game in no way honors Him.
But instead of girding myself with the Belt of Truth, I put on my $39.50 black braid dress belt from Land's End, which serves no purpose other than holding up my pants.
This is disobedience, as Paul mentioned that the Armor needed to be put on in *full* for a reason.
So, without the truth, my rebellious nature, which can not obey God of its own free will anyway, can and will take any and all foolish excuses which it deems acceptable to satisfy anything it wants. So I did. I re-downloaded the bits for the game and installed them. I re-upped my cancelled subscription, and even had them recover the deleted characters.
But seeing them again, in all their glory, did not make me happy.
It made me sick to my stomach.
The difference, my friends, was that when I last looked upon them, my heart was a lump of stone the size of my fist within my chest.
But now...
"I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws." Ezekiel 36:25-27
Now that this has happened to me, and I dwell in the secret place of the Most High, and abide in HIS shadow, my old clothes and mantles I once bore reek foul with the sin which my pride had dulled my senses enough to thoroughly ignore. I saw those characters and remembered all of the time my wife spent talking to the side of my head instead of having my undivided attention... all of the times my children wanted to play with me but I was too busy wallowing selfishly in my batcave to do so. I remembered all of the time and energy and effort I had not merely wasted, but poured into a pit full of greedy swine which have neither thought nor care that I had given it my greatest, most precious commodity, TIME; stealing from those to whom it truly belonged, only to watch the game devour it with that of every human being too reprobate to even care what truth or righteousness or holiness is, and how much we will all want to know it when our hearts have stopped beating and we all stand before God.
I saw them, and knew that Jesus meant what He said in John 10.
"My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” John 10:27-30.
This is assurance. And it is true. I know it beyond all doubt, and have my life as evidence. Once we give ourselves to Him, we are His forever, and not even the warm, comforting stench of the things we once did give us pleasure, because He changes our hearts and turns them from stone to flesh. He makes us from broken pottery into vessels that don't even require wax to hide and shore up the integrity. He transforms us into new people, He conforms us as adopted children into the image of His Son.
I belong to YHWH, and nothing shall ever snatch me from His hand.
With tears of gratefulness, and repentance and deep sorrow for my failure to obey, I deleted the software, never to partake of that table again. I put on the Belt of Truth and fastened it in place amongst all the other pieces of the Armor of God, because it is the last suit I will ever wear. I submit my every thought to Him, my every desire and feeling, my every word and action. If it does not glorify HIM, it will not be done.
Should I fail, I will truly repent and do it no more, and will resist no more that which God put me here to become.
I worship Him with my life. HE alone is worthy.
Amen.
David knew this to be true of every person, and said as much more than once.
"The LORD looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one." Psalm 14:2-3
Paul expounded further in his letter to the Romans, combining the verses of David with others of his Psalms, as well as Ecclesiastes and the prophet Isaiah.
"As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” “Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.” “The poison of vipers is on their lips.” “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”" Romans 3:10-18
My corruption could not be helped, being the reality of all human condition from the womb; our varying stages of denial notwithstanding. My selfishness, fueled by pride the size of a gas giant, has the power to reach into the substance of which I am made, take hold of my inherited stubborn tenacity, put it to the flame of whatever the lust du jour is, and craft such mind-numbing defiance and rebellion of what I know to be right and just, that I become a living caricature of what Paul wrote to Titus regarding those who routinely reject truth:
"To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted. They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good." Titus 1:15-16
I am here to tell you that submitting my will to the Lord only comes from *His* grace, because my corruption will not permit me to make the choice by myself. Apart from God, *self* preservation thinks the very idea is utterly foolish, and weak besides.
But this is *also* part of the plan of God, and identifies self-preservation as a feature of the world, rather than of the Spirit.
"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength." 1 Corinthians 1:18-25
The grace of God, given to me by His mercy; to believe that He is the LORD and His only Son died for my sin, to acknowledge Him now in my thoughts and feelings as well as my words and deeds, to submit my will and pride in obedience to Him, is *the ONLY thing* that changes my condition. *Not* my desire to be something other than what I am. *Not* the strength of my will or determination. *Not* my revulsion in the face of my failures. The grace and mercy of Yahweh, His choice to transplant my heart of stone with one of flesh, and love and adopt me IN SPITE OF ME, is the only reason why I can write now free from it all.
My most recent example of this was my submersion into World of Warcraft. It lasted almost 5 years, and could have wrecked everything that matters most in my life.
I know what some of you are likely thinking at that last sentence; affixing it with:
"How pathetic. What manner of fool falls prey to a video game?"
You'd be surprised.
The close resemblance to the game's posted disclaimer warning players to do other things with their time, to that on a cigarette package warning the purchaser that smoking their product can kill them, is no coincidence.
It is a product designed to not only attract the right paying client, but bind them to it so that the payment continues in ongoing subscription format. Anyone with a large inner fantasy world, as I have always harbored, is easily drawn to its seduction of pursuing wealth and power, all within a steeply detailed world of well crafted lore; of noble heroes and richly flawed villains in all their warmongering glory.
There is little reason to spend much time bothering with the details of life when one can be submerged beneath the sea of their own fantasy for as long as they can hold their breath beneath the waves. One glance at the news will show you that here are people who never come up for air before it is too late. The game is quite literally filled with people chained to its seductive power by the millions, pursuing its reality-defying, ego-satisfying goals at virtually all ages, in virtually all cultures, encompassing the globe. Those who play it seeking any form of efficiency and success must pour time into it like fresh water into a bottomless, thirst-inducing pit, always taking more than it gives. One surfaces from beneath its seductive waves and takes a breath only to discover that what they presumed was a few moments was actually several hours, and time and events have moved without their awareness or presence (and all the consequences therein)... and this life-draining game is the pursuit of choice for literally millions of people.
I was one of them.
I can think of no more innocuous-seeming death than that which the game offers.
It binds itself amorphously to the paying host with their own permission, injects ego-soothing visions of beauty and power into it which they crave, and removes their very presence willingly from all that is right in front of them. It is an escape that lasts as long as the power, game servers, and internet connections are up and running. Pauses for food and sleep become irritating distractions, as are any and all attempts by other people to interact with them. It is the refuge for those who have no relationships with people, and the destroyer of relationships for those who still have them.
It is yet one more modified weapon formed from the lust of the eyes; one of the same, tired, yet grossly effective three weapons from the arsenal of the Accuser. This version of it dulls the pain receptors just enough for the player to feel nothing while it carves their life to shreds.
Such is my weakness that I succumbed to it for 5 years. Such was my dumb luck that my family stayed together through it.
In July of 2010, I was given the grace from the Father to recognize it among the hooks that felt so wonderful in my flesh as they were killing me, observe how it was going to destroy everything I held dear, starting with my relationships with my wife and children and spreading outward from there, and forcibly remove them all. The sum total of all my efforts, all the characters I had created and reached the pinnacle of self-sufficient might over the course of years, were destroyed in a scorched earth manner. I erased them all. I cancelled my subscription and deleted the software from my computers. I emailed the proof of cancellation to my wife, who had grown so tired of looking at the side of my head while playing the game that she could only sit in shock at what I had done.
The story should end there. But it doesn't.
This is because the Grace To Submit, as invaluable and necessary as the gift of salvation, is just the beginning of the requisite effort to enter the narrow door.
The Submission Must Never Stop.
No desire or act of will can be separate from God after that.
We who follow Christ must be relentless, and even ruthless, in our submission and obedience because that which we submit is founded in corruption and therefore *will* come again like a weed, and use whatever remnant of pride we yet harbor to become our *choice* to disobey God and obey our own will. The Accuser won't stop cajoling us to make the choice which sides with rebellion until he is finally destroyed. He will ask us, just as he asked Eve, "Did God *truly* say...?" We hear those serpentine whispers because in the face of the truth, our nature, whatever form it takes, be it quantifiable through DNA or simple accustomed preference, will reject God utterly when we do not deem it important to submit to Him and obey.
We are given the equipment to do this successfully.
We just have to put it on. The last suit we'll ever wear.
The Armor of God, detailed in Ephesians 6, preserves the new heart of flesh the LORD gives His adopted children, and maintains the sanctification the follower of Christ is gifted with... but we have to faithfully equip it every second of our lives. Take one step without all of the pieces securely in place... make one stupid decision to use a shield made of something *men* crafted instead of the Shield of Faith... select a belt made of your inherent desires rather than the Belt of Truth, and know what it is to bring a knife to a gunfight. We not only lose, we look exceptionally retarded doing it.
I told you all of that to provide the proper background for the story of how I did that very thing. I am a work in progress, so I have and continue to do it in more ways than this, but while this is just as poignant in significance, it is also among the least humiliating.
The tale is brief, in comparison with the background. 6 months after I quit, a friend I have not seen in 26 years told me he played the game and invited me to join him. I told him I had quit and why, which he respected, but left it with "Should you choose to return, you know where to find me."
Now, had I been dressed properly, I would have told the *desire to play*, which spoke up now with numerous, very reasonable excuses as to how I could do it with moderation, to shut up and die, and run it through with the Sword I was also given. I would have told it that my life is not my own, having been delivered from the slavery of sin and death to the servitude and adopted sonship of God, and that the choice to partake of that game in no way honors Him.
But instead of girding myself with the Belt of Truth, I put on my $39.50 black braid dress belt from Land's End, which serves no purpose other than holding up my pants.
This is disobedience, as Paul mentioned that the Armor needed to be put on in *full* for a reason.
So, without the truth, my rebellious nature, which can not obey God of its own free will anyway, can and will take any and all foolish excuses which it deems acceptable to satisfy anything it wants. So I did. I re-downloaded the bits for the game and installed them. I re-upped my cancelled subscription, and even had them recover the deleted characters.
But seeing them again, in all their glory, did not make me happy.
It made me sick to my stomach.
The difference, my friends, was that when I last looked upon them, my heart was a lump of stone the size of my fist within my chest.
But now...
"I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws." Ezekiel 36:25-27
Now that this has happened to me, and I dwell in the secret place of the Most High, and abide in HIS shadow, my old clothes and mantles I once bore reek foul with the sin which my pride had dulled my senses enough to thoroughly ignore. I saw those characters and remembered all of the time my wife spent talking to the side of my head instead of having my undivided attention... all of the times my children wanted to play with me but I was too busy wallowing selfishly in my batcave to do so. I remembered all of the time and energy and effort I had not merely wasted, but poured into a pit full of greedy swine which have neither thought nor care that I had given it my greatest, most precious commodity, TIME; stealing from those to whom it truly belonged, only to watch the game devour it with that of every human being too reprobate to even care what truth or righteousness or holiness is, and how much we will all want to know it when our hearts have stopped beating and we all stand before God.
I saw them, and knew that Jesus meant what He said in John 10.
"My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” John 10:27-30.
This is assurance. And it is true. I know it beyond all doubt, and have my life as evidence. Once we give ourselves to Him, we are His forever, and not even the warm, comforting stench of the things we once did give us pleasure, because He changes our hearts and turns them from stone to flesh. He makes us from broken pottery into vessels that don't even require wax to hide and shore up the integrity. He transforms us into new people, He conforms us as adopted children into the image of His Son.
I belong to YHWH, and nothing shall ever snatch me from His hand.
With tears of gratefulness, and repentance and deep sorrow for my failure to obey, I deleted the software, never to partake of that table again. I put on the Belt of Truth and fastened it in place amongst all the other pieces of the Armor of God, because it is the last suit I will ever wear. I submit my every thought to Him, my every desire and feeling, my every word and action. If it does not glorify HIM, it will not be done.
Should I fail, I will truly repent and do it no more, and will resist no more that which God put me here to become.
I worship Him with my life. HE alone is worthy.
Amen.
Monday, November 1, 2010
See Your Enemy, Part 3
In parts 1 and 2, I discussed directly the false prophecies of the Jehovah's Witnesses, as well evidence of their deliberate alteration of the Bible to fit their doctrine. I also included the names and qualifications of the New World Translation's authors and how they barely pass what would be considered scholarly authorities by any stretch of either definition or imagination. I included scripture throughout the missive, ending Part 2 with a quote from the Lord Jesus Himself regarding His stark warning regarding false prophets.
I will here address what was another response from JohnOneOne, the apparent Jehovah's Witness who has taken the time to offer the perspective of the Watch Tower Society. Of the many assertions I made and backed up, he has chosen to respond to one. The comment was brief, and I have listed it below, to be followed by what will be a thorough response.
JohnOneOne said...
With respect to your claim that, throughout the years, Jehovah's Witnesses have proven themselves to being "False Prophets," the following two weblinks might be of some help in putting the fact of Jehovah's Witnesses failed expectations into proper perspective:
"The Churches, Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Question of Unfulfilled Prophetic Expectations"
http://jehovah.to/exe/general/prophetic.htm
and
"The Problem with 'False Prophecy' Polemics"
http://jehovah.to/xlation/fp.html
Agape.
http://www.goodcompanionbooks.com/
November 1, 2010 1:42 AM
The first link is an extensive list of the false prophecies that were maintained by churches of many different denominations. The site's About statement is as follows;
""Jehovah's Witnesses United" is simply the name of this site. All those directly associated with this site are active Jehovah's Witnesses in good standing with their local congregations. The site was created so that scholarly information supporting the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society's teachings and the New World Translation could be collected in one location on the web. This site is not meant as a substitute for Society literature, but as a further resource for those who would like to "dig deeper.""
What is fascinating about this alone is that the teachings of the Watchtower Society and their altered text are all that can be considered by those who are in good standing with their Kingdom Halls and seek to remain so. It is both the mandates and the terms of the Watch Tower Society that govern the hearts of Witnesses. They are to receive all direction *only* from their governing body and their doctrine. The Word of God, which should have been the standard from which all doctrine is conformed to, is instead made to conform to the Watchtower's mandates, and is therefore altered repeatedly until the square peg fits in the round hole. The hubris necessary to reach this height rivals that of Lucifer himself, who thought to set what *he* thought higher than that which God thought, and got sent from heaven like a bolt of lightning for his temerity.
There is a word for that, for thinking that your modifications to God's Word improve it from that which God already ordained through His Spirit working through the prophets and apostles:
blas-phe-my noun
1 a : the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for God.
1 b : the act of claiming the attributes of deity.
2: irreverence toward something considered sacred or inviolable.
This is how the Watchtower Society operates: According to them, they *alone*, with their "bible scholars", have the only truth; *all else is false*. In fact, according to the Jehovah's Witnesses, the publications of the Watchtower Society, or as they phrase it, of "God's visible theocratic organization", are the only channel by which God speaks to mankind today at all, and thus are required reading for all Christians. Furthermore, without accepting whatever it says in its entirety, all claims of loving God and receiving biblical truth are lies. Without the Watchtower, you will die.
Before anyone starts, I'm not inventing this, or doing something so feeble as making a "claim". Here it is in their own words:
1) "Make haste to identify the visible theocratic organization of God that represents his king, Jesus Christ. It is essential for life. Doing so, be complete in accepting its every aspect... We cannot claim to love God, yet deny his word and channel of communication." Watchtower, October 1, 1967.
2) "We must take seriously what his Word says and what his organization reveals to us.... Would not a failure to respond to direction from God through his organization really indicate a rejection of divine rulership?" Watchtower, February 15, 1976.
Watchtower Society = Divine Rulership?
Witnesses in their governing body have attested to this even when asked under oath.
In 1940, the New York King's County Court had a question for Frederick Franz, who was on the witness stand and under oath to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. They asked, "Who subsequently became the Editor of the magazine, the main editor of the "Watch Tower" magazine?" To which Frederick Franz answered, "Jehovah God." --New York King's County Clerks' Court Record, 1940, volume 2, page 795.
So Frederick Franz, the main author of their New World Translation, concurs; The Almighty God is the editor of the Watchtower. A child with beginning comprehension of transitive property can see the relationship: If God is the main Editor of the magazine, then everything in it must be the inspired word of the Lord. The Editor of a periodical is the one who accepts responsibility for anything written in it, because it meets with his or her approval first. A *human* Editor might make mistakes, or miss a detail, or accidentally let someone's error turn into a "failed expectation"... but if God Himself is the Editor, can there be any mistakes? So it isn't *my* claim, it is the sinking sand upon which the organization has been built. The blasphemous equation of Watchtower = divine rulership is their own monster.
Still, this was a record from man's court, and not something which the Witnesses themselves have written and approved, so this one recorded fact is perhaps viewed as a fabrication (see:irony), or at the least holds little value to them.
So let's stick only with what they say of themselves, as approved by Jehovah, according to them.
Let's first examine the content of the first link.: http://jehovah.to/exe/general/prophetic.htm
It contains first a write up on the false prophecies of numerous church denominations through the centuries; Lutheran, Catholic, Baptist, Assemblies of God, and so on. It doesn't mind calling them so, either--I presume for the purpose of informing its readers that they did not corner the market on false prophecy. Where it stops on themselves, however, it does not admit to being guilty of the same, but rather of "errors" based upon "data thought to be accurate".
As all lies are made more powerful by mixture with the truth, it even cites the verse in Deuteronomy: "When a prophet makes a statement in the name of the Lord, if what he says does not take place and his words do not come true, then his word is not the word of the Lord: the words of the prophet were said in the pride of his heart, and you are to have no fear of him." Deuteronomy 18:22
It then attempts to deflect the label of false prophet by saying that the label does not apply to "many of the predictions that we have documented*, because of those *many*, (many??--why not *any*??--God is the main editor, after all...)the speaker simply failed to correctly discern what a prophecy within the Bible meant. That is the only thing of intended substance offered to explain themselves: "*Whatever* we said or didn't say, we simply misinterpreted what was there and broadcast our errors to the world as if they were true,and we certainly never claimed that God told us to say it..."
Well. Except they *did*--the article's verbal sleight-of-hand notwithstanding.
The claim that they did not make these utterances in God's name, and therefore are not false prophets, is a damnable lie, already exposed by their blanket label of divine rulership from the Society, with God as the main editor. This lie is easily made because they do not assume anyone would take the time to pull up their back issues and see the more explicit truth in their own writing.
1) On page 5 of the January 1, 1942 issue of The Watchtower, they wrote: "Those who are convinced that The Watchtower is publishing the opinion or expression of a man should not waste time in looking at it at all... Those who believe that God uses The Watchtower as a means of communicating to his people, or of calling attention to his prophecies, should study The Watchtower..."
and HERE:
2) on pages 6 and 7 of the May 15, 1984 issue of the Watchtower, they said, "Jehovah's prophetic word through Jesus Christ is: 'This generation [of 1914] will by no means pass away until all things occur.' (Luke 21:32) And Jehovah, who is the source of inspired and unfailing prophecy, will bring about the fulfillment...
"Just as Jesus' prophecies regarding Jerusalem were fulfilled within the life span of the generation of the year 33 C.E., so his prophecies regarding 'the time of the end' will be fulfilled within the life span of the generation of 1914.
"Yes, you may live to see this promised New Order, along with survivors of the generation of 1914 -- the generation that will not pass away."
Did you see it?
1) If the opinions and expressions in it are not those of men, then who is left to express opinions and expressions? That 1942 declaration states unequivocally (and again) that the Watchtower Society conveys both the opinions and expressions of GOD, not MEN; dancing around the phrases only made it worse. They put it in marble when they said that if you *did* think they were of men, then you shouldn't even be *reading* it. That this act of attaching divine authorship to the Watchtower usurps the authority which belongs to God and His Word *alone* passes beneath the readers notice from all the gyrations.
2) The Watchtower 1984 issue quote is consistent with the same hubris-filled statement as the first. They do NOT begin their statement with "We believe" or "It is our opinion", which would excuse it as possibly fallible as JohnOneOne's second link wants us to think (which I'll get to) but rather uses the unmistakable, "Jehovah's prophetic word through Jesus Christ *is*:"
That would be saying the Almighty God speaks when you speak, there, fella.
So. Um,.. no. Defending lies with more lies only works when the person you are trying to deceive has no real desire to know the truth. Or has the sense God gave a walnut.
The first link's defense not only proved my case that they are false prophets, it showed that they don't even care to know the whole truth of what is in their own manuscript vaults, and thus further obscure the truth. The site is there for those who wish to "dig deeper". They must expect people to somehow look at what they dig up without the use of their eyes, which if used to read the *Bible* more than their periodical, they would note that verifying what they we are told *before* saying "Amen" to it, is in fact encouraged. But to someone accustomed to being led by the nose rather than led by the Word, and led to pray to the Almighty for the truth while seeking His face and submitting to His will, heads will simply nod, and nose-rings will jingle within the confines of their leashes, and the glaring absence of the real Truth goes completely missed.
Now, the second link, from the same site, contains several pages of all the times in which the Watchtower society attempts to *completely* reverse itself and claim it did *not* say they were speaking in God's name, prefaced by what boils down to, "If I recorded everything you ever said in your life, I could take a bunch of your words and make you look like a villain or a saint. Why aren't folks choosing to remember the good things we've said and done instead of focusing on the bad stuff?"
Does the act of bemoaning remembrances of things which you should not have said constitute a defense, or amount to an excuse of the petulant whining variety a child might exhibit when caught doing something he or she should not have done? "Martin and Billy did it, too...!" is irrelevant to the point entirely; One is either telling the truth, or one is lying through their teeth. As God is holy and righteous, He commits no errors. So--if errors have come from the Watchtower, God is not holding the office they claim.
It is a complete 180 degree turn from the prideful stance clearly illustrated in "Those who are convinced that The Watchtower is publishing the opinion or expression of a man should not waste time in looking at it at all... " and instead contains quotes from all over their publication that say "We have not the gift of prophecy" and "we are merely giving our surmises" and even "The Watchtower does not claim to be inspired in its utterances, nor is it dogmatic." It paints the Jehovah's Witnesses as saying they've "speculated" and "committed errors."--an organization run by God Himself lets errors come from it??--and it also concludes, "Thus, the Watch Tower Society is not a false prophet, for the simple reason that it is not a prophet."
While this... let's call it *modification*, leaves the quotes I've listed from their published works, and innumerable others, out as if they were never written, it also fudges the definition of words like "prophet", and therefore, false prophet. This is not surprising, as the organization employs the art of the chameleon with abandon to make the Word of God match their doctrine.
So let's be clear.
proph-et noun
1) One who utters divinely inspired revelations.
2) One gifted with more than ordinary spiritual and moral insight.
3) One who foretells the future
A false prophet, therefore, is someone who makes the claim to be what is defined as a prophet, when in fact he or she is not.
And that the Watchtower Society claims to be prophetic gets no more explicit than this:
"Whom has God actually used as his prophet?.... Jehovah's witnesses are deeply grateful today that the plain facts show that God has been pleased to use them.... Jehovah thrust out his hand of power and touched their lips and put his words in their mouths." (Watchtower, January 15, 1959, pages 40-41)
Come on, man. How are you going to say *I* made a claim, when the Watchtower made it 51 years ago? They declare *themselves* prophets, used by God, with God's own words put into their mouths. It even states how grateful they are to be used as such. What fool is supposed to think the slew of denials in the second link are supposed to have any relevance whatsoever in the face of these declarations from the same "theocratic organization" that wrote the altered New World Translation?
There are two eight letter words which accurately sum up the second link. I will list the definition for the one that is fit for print.
ret-ro-fit (vt)
1) to furnish with new or modified parts or equipment not available or considered necessary at the time of manufacture.
2) to install (new or modified parts or equipment) in something previously manufactured or constructed.
3) to adapt to a new purpose or need : modify
Now, should a convicted criminal's sudden repeated claims, all firm denials of having ever committed acts of violence, be believed in the face of that same person's recorded evidence of unrepentant bloodshed? No. That would be foolish. Nor should the repeated claims that "We're not false prophets, because we aren't prophets" be believed in the face of the unrepentant words to the precise contrary in the defendant's own handwriting.
Amidst the excuses and deflection words are petulant questions like, "...but Billy Graham, John Wesley and Martin Luther did it, too, are you giving them the same treatment?"
Sure, they get the same treatment in my book, if they have committed the same offense. But you know something? Those men didn't try to sell me a loud, belligerent lie, only to insult my intelligence by telling me the exact opposite, as if I don't know how to read or comprehend. Those men did not then have the *audacity* to give me literature to use to teach *MY CHILDREN* their brand of poison, in an attempt to make me an accomplice in their blasphemy, and commit *their souls* to the same fate. And they didn't *dare* say to my face that I was not to fall to my knees and worship my Lord and Savior Jesus for saving my wretched soul from the death it deserves, because Jesus "is not God, and not therefore to be worshiped".
I will cry aloud and spare not my throat in the shouting at shining the light of Truth on *any* man, *any* doctrine, that exchanges the truth of God's Word for a lie and leads the sheep to the Second Death. I have exposed the very United Church of Christ denomination which weaned me while simultaneously choosing comfortable lies of immorality over inconvenient, offensive truth of God's demand of holiness and righteousness--and I am now doing it to the Satan-inspired cult that sought to devour me and mine while I was spiritually lost and outside of the salvation of the Almighty God.
A real organization in true service to God would recognize its refusal to acknowledge the truth of God and repent of its ways; not alter the Bible to suit their hubris-filled doctrine, not make excuses that others have done the same and worse, not cover their rears by fudging the truth of definitions and pointing out the failures of others, like Adam pointing at Eve with Tree of Knowledge fruit juice still running down his face. I "claim" that the Watch Tower Organization has lied for over 100 years and quote the proof from their own text, and in response I am offered links to sites which that very organization has crafted to make excuses for itself, and admit to lesser crimes.
Rather than buy the organization's own claims of innocence in the face of its own documented guilt, and pretend there is no moral hazard associated with that, I will just stick to the unbastardized Word of God and verify everything which anyone claims *before* I say "So Be It", as the Bereans did, and earnestly contend for the faith, as written in the Book of Jude.
I will here address what was another response from JohnOneOne, the apparent Jehovah's Witness who has taken the time to offer the perspective of the Watch Tower Society. Of the many assertions I made and backed up, he has chosen to respond to one. The comment was brief, and I have listed it below, to be followed by what will be a thorough response.
JohnOneOne said...
With respect to your claim that, throughout the years, Jehovah's Witnesses have proven themselves to being "False Prophets," the following two weblinks might be of some help in putting the fact of Jehovah's Witnesses failed expectations into proper perspective:
"The Churches, Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Question of Unfulfilled Prophetic Expectations"
http://jehovah.to/exe/general/prophetic.htm
and
"The Problem with 'False Prophecy' Polemics"
http://jehovah.to/xlation/fp.html
Agape.
http://www.goodcompanionbooks.com/
November 1, 2010 1:42 AM
The first link is an extensive list of the false prophecies that were maintained by churches of many different denominations. The site's About statement is as follows;
""Jehovah's Witnesses United" is simply the name of this site. All those directly associated with this site are active Jehovah's Witnesses in good standing with their local congregations. The site was created so that scholarly information supporting the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society's teachings and the New World Translation could be collected in one location on the web. This site is not meant as a substitute for Society literature, but as a further resource for those who would like to "dig deeper.""
What is fascinating about this alone is that the teachings of the Watchtower Society and their altered text are all that can be considered by those who are in good standing with their Kingdom Halls and seek to remain so. It is both the mandates and the terms of the Watch Tower Society that govern the hearts of Witnesses. They are to receive all direction *only* from their governing body and their doctrine. The Word of God, which should have been the standard from which all doctrine is conformed to, is instead made to conform to the Watchtower's mandates, and is therefore altered repeatedly until the square peg fits in the round hole. The hubris necessary to reach this height rivals that of Lucifer himself, who thought to set what *he* thought higher than that which God thought, and got sent from heaven like a bolt of lightning for his temerity.
There is a word for that, for thinking that your modifications to God's Word improve it from that which God already ordained through His Spirit working through the prophets and apostles:
blas-phe-my noun
1 a : the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for God.
1 b : the act of claiming the attributes of deity.
2: irreverence toward something considered sacred or inviolable.
This is how the Watchtower Society operates: According to them, they *alone*, with their "bible scholars", have the only truth; *all else is false*. In fact, according to the Jehovah's Witnesses, the publications of the Watchtower Society, or as they phrase it, of "God's visible theocratic organization", are the only channel by which God speaks to mankind today at all, and thus are required reading for all Christians. Furthermore, without accepting whatever it says in its entirety, all claims of loving God and receiving biblical truth are lies. Without the Watchtower, you will die.
Before anyone starts, I'm not inventing this, or doing something so feeble as making a "claim". Here it is in their own words:
1) "Make haste to identify the visible theocratic organization of God that represents his king, Jesus Christ. It is essential for life. Doing so, be complete in accepting its every aspect... We cannot claim to love God, yet deny his word and channel of communication." Watchtower, October 1, 1967.
2) "We must take seriously what his Word says and what his organization reveals to us.... Would not a failure to respond to direction from God through his organization really indicate a rejection of divine rulership?" Watchtower, February 15, 1976.
Watchtower Society = Divine Rulership?
Witnesses in their governing body have attested to this even when asked under oath.
In 1940, the New York King's County Court had a question for Frederick Franz, who was on the witness stand and under oath to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. They asked, "Who subsequently became the Editor of the magazine, the main editor of the "Watch Tower" magazine?" To which Frederick Franz answered, "Jehovah God." --New York King's County Clerks' Court Record, 1940, volume 2, page 795.
So Frederick Franz, the main author of their New World Translation, concurs; The Almighty God is the editor of the Watchtower. A child with beginning comprehension of transitive property can see the relationship: If God is the main Editor of the magazine, then everything in it must be the inspired word of the Lord. The Editor of a periodical is the one who accepts responsibility for anything written in it, because it meets with his or her approval first. A *human* Editor might make mistakes, or miss a detail, or accidentally let someone's error turn into a "failed expectation"... but if God Himself is the Editor, can there be any mistakes? So it isn't *my* claim, it is the sinking sand upon which the organization has been built. The blasphemous equation of Watchtower = divine rulership is their own monster.
Still, this was a record from man's court, and not something which the Witnesses themselves have written and approved, so this one recorded fact is perhaps viewed as a fabrication (see:irony), or at the least holds little value to them.
So let's stick only with what they say of themselves, as approved by Jehovah, according to them.
Let's first examine the content of the first link.: http://jehovah.to/exe/general/prophetic.htm
It contains first a write up on the false prophecies of numerous church denominations through the centuries; Lutheran, Catholic, Baptist, Assemblies of God, and so on. It doesn't mind calling them so, either--I presume for the purpose of informing its readers that they did not corner the market on false prophecy. Where it stops on themselves, however, it does not admit to being guilty of the same, but rather of "errors" based upon "data thought to be accurate".
As all lies are made more powerful by mixture with the truth, it even cites the verse in Deuteronomy: "When a prophet makes a statement in the name of the Lord, if what he says does not take place and his words do not come true, then his word is not the word of the Lord: the words of the prophet were said in the pride of his heart, and you are to have no fear of him." Deuteronomy 18:22
It then attempts to deflect the label of false prophet by saying that the label does not apply to "many of the predictions that we have documented*, because of those *many*, (many??--why not *any*??--God is the main editor, after all...)the speaker simply failed to correctly discern what a prophecy within the Bible meant. That is the only thing of intended substance offered to explain themselves: "*Whatever* we said or didn't say, we simply misinterpreted what was there and broadcast our errors to the world as if they were true,and we certainly never claimed that God told us to say it..."
Well. Except they *did*--the article's verbal sleight-of-hand notwithstanding.
The claim that they did not make these utterances in God's name, and therefore are not false prophets, is a damnable lie, already exposed by their blanket label of divine rulership from the Society, with God as the main editor. This lie is easily made because they do not assume anyone would take the time to pull up their back issues and see the more explicit truth in their own writing.
1) On page 5 of the January 1, 1942 issue of The Watchtower, they wrote: "Those who are convinced that The Watchtower is publishing the opinion or expression of a man should not waste time in looking at it at all... Those who believe that God uses The Watchtower as a means of communicating to his people, or of calling attention to his prophecies, should study The Watchtower..."
and HERE:
2) on pages 6 and 7 of the May 15, 1984 issue of the Watchtower, they said, "Jehovah's prophetic word through Jesus Christ is: 'This generation [of 1914] will by no means pass away until all things occur.' (Luke 21:32) And Jehovah, who is the source of inspired and unfailing prophecy, will bring about the fulfillment...
"Just as Jesus' prophecies regarding Jerusalem were fulfilled within the life span of the generation of the year 33 C.E., so his prophecies regarding 'the time of the end' will be fulfilled within the life span of the generation of 1914.
"Yes, you may live to see this promised New Order, along with survivors of the generation of 1914 -- the generation that will not pass away."
Did you see it?
1) If the opinions and expressions in it are not those of men, then who is left to express opinions and expressions? That 1942 declaration states unequivocally (and again) that the Watchtower Society conveys both the opinions and expressions of GOD, not MEN; dancing around the phrases only made it worse. They put it in marble when they said that if you *did* think they were of men, then you shouldn't even be *reading* it. That this act of attaching divine authorship to the Watchtower usurps the authority which belongs to God and His Word *alone* passes beneath the readers notice from all the gyrations.
2) The Watchtower 1984 issue quote is consistent with the same hubris-filled statement as the first. They do NOT begin their statement with "We believe" or "It is our opinion", which would excuse it as possibly fallible as JohnOneOne's second link wants us to think (which I'll get to) but rather uses the unmistakable, "Jehovah's prophetic word through Jesus Christ *is*:"
That would be saying the Almighty God speaks when you speak, there, fella.
So. Um,.. no. Defending lies with more lies only works when the person you are trying to deceive has no real desire to know the truth. Or has the sense God gave a walnut.
The first link's defense not only proved my case that they are false prophets, it showed that they don't even care to know the whole truth of what is in their own manuscript vaults, and thus further obscure the truth. The site is there for those who wish to "dig deeper". They must expect people to somehow look at what they dig up without the use of their eyes, which if used to read the *Bible* more than their periodical, they would note that verifying what they we are told *before* saying "Amen" to it, is in fact encouraged. But to someone accustomed to being led by the nose rather than led by the Word, and led to pray to the Almighty for the truth while seeking His face and submitting to His will, heads will simply nod, and nose-rings will jingle within the confines of their leashes, and the glaring absence of the real Truth goes completely missed.
Now, the second link, from the same site, contains several pages of all the times in which the Watchtower society attempts to *completely* reverse itself and claim it did *not* say they were speaking in God's name, prefaced by what boils down to, "If I recorded everything you ever said in your life, I could take a bunch of your words and make you look like a villain or a saint. Why aren't folks choosing to remember the good things we've said and done instead of focusing on the bad stuff?"
Does the act of bemoaning remembrances of things which you should not have said constitute a defense, or amount to an excuse of the petulant whining variety a child might exhibit when caught doing something he or she should not have done? "Martin and Billy did it, too...!" is irrelevant to the point entirely; One is either telling the truth, or one is lying through their teeth. As God is holy and righteous, He commits no errors. So--if errors have come from the Watchtower, God is not holding the office they claim.
It is a complete 180 degree turn from the prideful stance clearly illustrated in "Those who are convinced that The Watchtower is publishing the opinion or expression of a man should not waste time in looking at it at all... " and instead contains quotes from all over their publication that say "We have not the gift of prophecy" and "we are merely giving our surmises" and even "The Watchtower does not claim to be inspired in its utterances, nor is it dogmatic." It paints the Jehovah's Witnesses as saying they've "speculated" and "committed errors."--an organization run by God Himself lets errors come from it??--and it also concludes, "Thus, the Watch Tower Society is not a false prophet, for the simple reason that it is not a prophet."
While this... let's call it *modification*, leaves the quotes I've listed from their published works, and innumerable others, out as if they were never written, it also fudges the definition of words like "prophet", and therefore, false prophet. This is not surprising, as the organization employs the art of the chameleon with abandon to make the Word of God match their doctrine.
So let's be clear.
proph-et noun
1) One who utters divinely inspired revelations.
2) One gifted with more than ordinary spiritual and moral insight.
3) One who foretells the future
A false prophet, therefore, is someone who makes the claim to be what is defined as a prophet, when in fact he or she is not.
And that the Watchtower Society claims to be prophetic gets no more explicit than this:
"Whom has God actually used as his prophet?.... Jehovah's witnesses are deeply grateful today that the plain facts show that God has been pleased to use them.... Jehovah thrust out his hand of power and touched their lips and put his words in their mouths." (Watchtower, January 15, 1959, pages 40-41)
Come on, man. How are you going to say *I* made a claim, when the Watchtower made it 51 years ago? They declare *themselves* prophets, used by God, with God's own words put into their mouths. It even states how grateful they are to be used as such. What fool is supposed to think the slew of denials in the second link are supposed to have any relevance whatsoever in the face of these declarations from the same "theocratic organization" that wrote the altered New World Translation?
There are two eight letter words which accurately sum up the second link. I will list the definition for the one that is fit for print.
ret-ro-fit (vt)
1) to furnish with new or modified parts or equipment not available or considered necessary at the time of manufacture.
2) to install (new or modified parts or equipment) in something previously manufactured or constructed.
3) to adapt to a new purpose or need : modify
Now, should a convicted criminal's sudden repeated claims, all firm denials of having ever committed acts of violence, be believed in the face of that same person's recorded evidence of unrepentant bloodshed? No. That would be foolish. Nor should the repeated claims that "We're not false prophets, because we aren't prophets" be believed in the face of the unrepentant words to the precise contrary in the defendant's own handwriting.
Amidst the excuses and deflection words are petulant questions like, "...but Billy Graham, John Wesley and Martin Luther did it, too, are you giving them the same treatment?"
Sure, they get the same treatment in my book, if they have committed the same offense. But you know something? Those men didn't try to sell me a loud, belligerent lie, only to insult my intelligence by telling me the exact opposite, as if I don't know how to read or comprehend. Those men did not then have the *audacity* to give me literature to use to teach *MY CHILDREN* their brand of poison, in an attempt to make me an accomplice in their blasphemy, and commit *their souls* to the same fate. And they didn't *dare* say to my face that I was not to fall to my knees and worship my Lord and Savior Jesus for saving my wretched soul from the death it deserves, because Jesus "is not God, and not therefore to be worshiped".
I will cry aloud and spare not my throat in the shouting at shining the light of Truth on *any* man, *any* doctrine, that exchanges the truth of God's Word for a lie and leads the sheep to the Second Death. I have exposed the very United Church of Christ denomination which weaned me while simultaneously choosing comfortable lies of immorality over inconvenient, offensive truth of God's demand of holiness and righteousness--and I am now doing it to the Satan-inspired cult that sought to devour me and mine while I was spiritually lost and outside of the salvation of the Almighty God.
A real organization in true service to God would recognize its refusal to acknowledge the truth of God and repent of its ways; not alter the Bible to suit their hubris-filled doctrine, not make excuses that others have done the same and worse, not cover their rears by fudging the truth of definitions and pointing out the failures of others, like Adam pointing at Eve with Tree of Knowledge fruit juice still running down his face. I "claim" that the Watch Tower Organization has lied for over 100 years and quote the proof from their own text, and in response I am offered links to sites which that very organization has crafted to make excuses for itself, and admit to lesser crimes.
Rather than buy the organization's own claims of innocence in the face of its own documented guilt, and pretend there is no moral hazard associated with that, I will just stick to the unbastardized Word of God and verify everything which anyone claims *before* I say "So Be It", as the Bereans did, and earnestly contend for the faith, as written in the Book of Jude.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
See Your Enemy, Part 2
I was rather swiftly responded to Part 1 by an apparent Jehovah's witness, who said the following:
JohnOneOne said...
Regarding Jehovah's Witnesses' "New World Translation" Bible and its rendering of John 1:1, it may interest you to know that there is soon to be published an 18+ year study (as of 10/2010), a thoroughly researched reference work in support and explanation of their wording of this verse (especially within the third clause with "a god"), as it will be entitled, "What About John 1:1?"
To learn more of its design and expected release date, we invite you to visit:
http://www.goodcompanionbooks.com
When finally published, you will see that there are some 400+ scholarly reference works which have opted to say something other than, “and the Word was God,” and that, among these, are included over 100 which had chosen to use “a god” within the third clause of their renderings.
As you might expect, we are very excited at the opportunity to share our findings with others.
Agape, JohnOneOne.
~~~~~~~~~~
October 31, 2010 3:17 AM
My response to this was too long for the comment section, and is therefore the body of this post.
Interesting.
So the corroborating efforts of "400+ scholarly reference works" supporting one of your most crucial, faith-changing alterations of Scripture are supposed to hold significance over the number of times the Watchtower Society has both doubled back and recanted its own prophecies in its own publications, and outright omitted words and replaced them with words that were not ever written in any language in any translation, such as "worship" replaced by the lesser term "obeisance" in reference to Jesus? How many dates were moved, or altogether scrapped, that were planted by "bible scholars" and accepted by more sheep than could fill a modern stadium, only to end up as nothing else than what they are--false prophecies declared by false prophets?
At what point is an acknowledged *and* proven false prophet to be believed? At what point does the hubris of an organization that believes *it* has the right to continually change the UNCHANGING Word of God to suit its doctrine's purposes reach critical mass in blasphemy? Is it when "400+ scholarly reference works" agree?
Having read and been instructed under one of the more studious and serious Witnesses over the course of 2 years, I have learned how highly Jehovah's Witnesses place value in their scholars, as though the label implies mastery of a thing. But there are two definitions of the word "scholar" according to Webster's Dictionary, and the Watchtower Society hides behind the lesser primary one while implying the greater secondary. This is clever. It is also shady.
Miriam Webster's "scholar" definition 1) A person who attends a school or studies under a teacher (pupil).
Miriam Webster's "scholar" definition 2) A person who has done advanced study in a special field.
Your teaching tools clearly imply the latter is the case for those who receive the scholar title among you, as it is used to pad the reasoning behind why they are not publicly named. My mentor from the local Hall said something to the effect of, "They were scholars and therefore knew their craft, and gave their efforts to anonymity, that God alone may be glorified rather than them."
It sounded so noble that I missed the fact that the anonymity also made it so that they could not be questioned. In spite of this, the facts of the education and training of the "bible scholars" that fabricated the New World Translation do not even facetiously approach the assertion of their mastery.
I have learned very recently that the actual authors of the New World Translation, whom Jehovah's Witnesses do not name publicly, are not only in fact numbered and named, but occupy at best the former definition.
There were 6 of them:
Frederick W. Franz
Nathan H. Knorr
Milton G. Henschel
Albert D. Schroeder
Karl Klein
George D. Gangas
Number of "bible scholars" *at all* trained in the biblical languages: 1.
One single man listed as the main author. Not quite the misleading plural defined by the Witnesses. These verbal gyrations do not lend credibility to a group that has discredited itself with their false prophecies. But since when does the average person even care to verify anything they are told?
The NWT's "main writer" was Frederick W. Franz, taught in entry level Greek consisting of one 2 credit hour class in "Bible Greek" and 21 credit hours in classical Greek. George Gangas was a Turkish national who spoke modern Greek and translated English-to-Greek publications. The other 4 I guess all stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night, because they had no training in the languages in which the Bible was written, but share the first definition of "scholar" with George.
So now there are over 400 "scholarly reference works" to back up one of the altered scriptures? I wonder if any of the names the Watchtower Society will be at liberty to reveal in the bibliography will be people whose views we can receive firsthand, for those of us who have faith only in God and His Word rather than in those who are on record as having unabashedly lied to the planet over the span of 5 generations and counting.
I have a few questions;
1)Again, at what point should a false prophet, with numerous false prophecies acknowledged even by its own elders over the span of 100+ years, be finally believed? Should it be when one of their choices to anonymously change the Word of God to reflect their doctrine, is corroborated by "400+ scholarly reference works"?
2) I am to understand that no fewer than 401 "scholarly reference works" have discovered that John the Apostle, the Revelator, one of the Sons of Thunder, who walked, ate and learned at the feet of Jesus, was somehow inept in the use of sentence structure of the language of scholars in his day, and did not write what YHWH intended... while your one individual who even attempted entry level comprehension of the dialect of the language could do it better? Seriously?
3)Or am I to understand that those who even teach classical Greek today are just as inept at comprehending a sentence phrase consisting of no fewer than *5 words*, 5 words which leave as much room for optional meaning in their written form as that of an octagonal red STOP sign on a street corner?
4) I am to believe all of this from the Watchtower Society, which has simply republished a new modification of the NWT when the Bible is found not to match with their doctrine, as if the hubris to presume that the Word of God must be altered to align with man's doctrine rather than the other way around is perfectly acceptable?
5) Do these "scholarly reference works" have the title of scholar by virtue of the same qualifications that the 6 authors of the NWT received theirs? Are they scholars because they agree with the Watchtower Society or have studied with them... because the first definition of scholar has only "being a pupil" as a requisite. I ask because 83% of the NWT authors were nothing close to the latter; they were not serious students of the Bible, having no knowledge of the languages in which it was written, and had to rely on the word of Frederick Franz and his entry level Greek course work. On what planet is a person with entry level knowledge considered a master of their craft?
Not this one.
The Truth is that the Jehovah's Witnesses have altered, by both omitting and adding where it suited them, the Word of God since the 1800s, and people will eat it on the plate because they are mostly comprised of folk with neither knowledge of the Bible nor desire to do anything about it but be led by the nose to their slaughter. Now there are 400 "works" to join the cause of exchanging the truth of God for a lie.
I, on the other hand, will look to the Word of God. In it, without need of any modification, we are instructed on what to do when we encounter those whose prophecies are false:
"Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves." Matthew 7:15
It is much more likely that it simply takes 400+ "scholarly reference works" to even begin to make a serious effort to cloud the Truth of the Word of God. Even for sheep that are lulled to sleep and don't bother to look up in time to see the blade coming for their necks.
JohnOneOne said...
Regarding Jehovah's Witnesses' "New World Translation" Bible and its rendering of John 1:1, it may interest you to know that there is soon to be published an 18+ year study (as of 10/2010), a thoroughly researched reference work in support and explanation of their wording of this verse (especially within the third clause with "a god"), as it will be entitled, "What About John 1:1?"
To learn more of its design and expected release date, we invite you to visit:
http://www.goodcompanionbooks.com
When finally published, you will see that there are some 400+ scholarly reference works which have opted to say something other than, “and the Word was God,” and that, among these, are included over 100 which had chosen to use “a god” within the third clause of their renderings.
As you might expect, we are very excited at the opportunity to share our findings with others.
Agape, JohnOneOne.
~~~~~~~~~~
October 31, 2010 3:17 AM
My response to this was too long for the comment section, and is therefore the body of this post.
Interesting.
So the corroborating efforts of "400+ scholarly reference works" supporting one of your most crucial, faith-changing alterations of Scripture are supposed to hold significance over the number of times the Watchtower Society has both doubled back and recanted its own prophecies in its own publications, and outright omitted words and replaced them with words that were not ever written in any language in any translation, such as "worship" replaced by the lesser term "obeisance" in reference to Jesus? How many dates were moved, or altogether scrapped, that were planted by "bible scholars" and accepted by more sheep than could fill a modern stadium, only to end up as nothing else than what they are--false prophecies declared by false prophets?
At what point is an acknowledged *and* proven false prophet to be believed? At what point does the hubris of an organization that believes *it* has the right to continually change the UNCHANGING Word of God to suit its doctrine's purposes reach critical mass in blasphemy? Is it when "400+ scholarly reference works" agree?
Having read and been instructed under one of the more studious and serious Witnesses over the course of 2 years, I have learned how highly Jehovah's Witnesses place value in their scholars, as though the label implies mastery of a thing. But there are two definitions of the word "scholar" according to Webster's Dictionary, and the Watchtower Society hides behind the lesser primary one while implying the greater secondary. This is clever. It is also shady.
Miriam Webster's "scholar" definition 1) A person who attends a school or studies under a teacher (pupil).
Miriam Webster's "scholar" definition 2) A person who has done advanced study in a special field.
Your teaching tools clearly imply the latter is the case for those who receive the scholar title among you, as it is used to pad the reasoning behind why they are not publicly named. My mentor from the local Hall said something to the effect of, "They were scholars and therefore knew their craft, and gave their efforts to anonymity, that God alone may be glorified rather than them."
It sounded so noble that I missed the fact that the anonymity also made it so that they could not be questioned. In spite of this, the facts of the education and training of the "bible scholars" that fabricated the New World Translation do not even facetiously approach the assertion of their mastery.
I have learned very recently that the actual authors of the New World Translation, whom Jehovah's Witnesses do not name publicly, are not only in fact numbered and named, but occupy at best the former definition.
There were 6 of them:
Frederick W. Franz
Nathan H. Knorr
Milton G. Henschel
Albert D. Schroeder
Karl Klein
George D. Gangas
Number of "bible scholars" *at all* trained in the biblical languages: 1.
One single man listed as the main author. Not quite the misleading plural defined by the Witnesses. These verbal gyrations do not lend credibility to a group that has discredited itself with their false prophecies. But since when does the average person even care to verify anything they are told?
The NWT's "main writer" was Frederick W. Franz, taught in entry level Greek consisting of one 2 credit hour class in "Bible Greek" and 21 credit hours in classical Greek. George Gangas was a Turkish national who spoke modern Greek and translated English-to-Greek publications. The other 4 I guess all stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night, because they had no training in the languages in which the Bible was written, but share the first definition of "scholar" with George.
So now there are over 400 "scholarly reference works" to back up one of the altered scriptures? I wonder if any of the names the Watchtower Society will be at liberty to reveal in the bibliography will be people whose views we can receive firsthand, for those of us who have faith only in God and His Word rather than in those who are on record as having unabashedly lied to the planet over the span of 5 generations and counting.
I have a few questions;
1)Again, at what point should a false prophet, with numerous false prophecies acknowledged even by its own elders over the span of 100+ years, be finally believed? Should it be when one of their choices to anonymously change the Word of God to reflect their doctrine, is corroborated by "400+ scholarly reference works"?
2) I am to understand that no fewer than 401 "scholarly reference works" have discovered that John the Apostle, the Revelator, one of the Sons of Thunder, who walked, ate and learned at the feet of Jesus, was somehow inept in the use of sentence structure of the language of scholars in his day, and did not write what YHWH intended... while your one individual who even attempted entry level comprehension of the dialect of the language could do it better? Seriously?
3)Or am I to understand that those who even teach classical Greek today are just as inept at comprehending a sentence phrase consisting of no fewer than *5 words*, 5 words which leave as much room for optional meaning in their written form as that of an octagonal red STOP sign on a street corner?
4) I am to believe all of this from the Watchtower Society, which has simply republished a new modification of the NWT when the Bible is found not to match with their doctrine, as if the hubris to presume that the Word of God must be altered to align with man's doctrine rather than the other way around is perfectly acceptable?
5) Do these "scholarly reference works" have the title of scholar by virtue of the same qualifications that the 6 authors of the NWT received theirs? Are they scholars because they agree with the Watchtower Society or have studied with them... because the first definition of scholar has only "being a pupil" as a requisite. I ask because 83% of the NWT authors were nothing close to the latter; they were not serious students of the Bible, having no knowledge of the languages in which it was written, and had to rely on the word of Frederick Franz and his entry level Greek course work. On what planet is a person with entry level knowledge considered a master of their craft?
Not this one.
The Truth is that the Jehovah's Witnesses have altered, by both omitting and adding where it suited them, the Word of God since the 1800s, and people will eat it on the plate because they are mostly comprised of folk with neither knowledge of the Bible nor desire to do anything about it but be led by the nose to their slaughter. Now there are 400 "works" to join the cause of exchanging the truth of God for a lie.
I, on the other hand, will look to the Word of God. In it, without need of any modification, we are instructed on what to do when we encounter those whose prophecies are false:
"Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves." Matthew 7:15
It is much more likely that it simply takes 400+ "scholarly reference works" to even begin to make a serious effort to cloud the Truth of the Word of God. Even for sheep that are lulled to sleep and don't bother to look up in time to see the blade coming for their necks.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
See Your Enemy, Part 1
Ignorance of the Word of God marks us as prey.
Bane levels the weapon Neo had brought into the ship's hold at Neo, finger on the trigger.
Neo: "What do you want??"
Agent Smith (as Bane): "I want what *you* want..."
Neo: "..."
Agent Smith (as Bane): "Yes... that's it, Mr. Anderson. Look past the flesh. Look through the soft gelatin of these dull cow eyes, and see your enemy..."
Neo: "No...!"
Agent Smith (as Bane): "Oh yes, Mr. Anderson."
Neo: "It can't be...!"
Agent Smith (as Bane): "There is nowhere I can't go. There is nowhere I can't find you."
Neo: "That's impossible...!"
Agent Smith (as Bane): "Not impossible. Inevitable. Goodbye, Mr. Anderson."
In life, we will encounter those who masquerade as friends long enough to get in range of vital organs and strike, as Smith hoped to do to Neo in The Matrix Revolutions. Of these, some are even unaware of the damage that will be wrought upon those organs, ignorant of even an intention to do any harm. They are ignorant because they wield reinforced lies; dipped liberally in corrupted biblical truth for tensile strength. They then wield their lies with abandon, and have done so for so long and with such efficiency that they can neither distinguish their lies from the truth, nor see how their efforts will cause the unending torment of so many souls.
Today, if he shows up at my door, I will tell one of these enemies of my soul that I both know him for who he is and precisely why. I will tell him that he and all of his ilk are unwelcome in my home, that his cover is completely blown, and I now know him for both who he is and to whom he belongs.
It took years of research to reach this place. What I have learned I will now share with you, that you may never fall victim to these purveyors of lies.
Had I not, in my quest to know the truth, been earnestly praying to God, and *trusting* Him, to allow me to both learn what is true *and* prevent me from being deceived, I may very well have been devoured by these people.
The purpose of this portion of my blog is to arm those who follow Jesus with what is required to ward these people off... people who are successful because their prey is ignorant of God's Word. I will put here the sum total of nearly two years of sojourning with these wolves which masquerade as shepherds, that you may see your enemy who inhabits their clean, polite veneer.
"For such men are false Apostles, workers of deceit, making themselves seem like Apostles of Christ. And it is no wonder; for even Satan himself is able to take the form of an angel of light." 2 Corinthians 11:13-14
The Preface
Well... Grandma was right, as usual.
I remember, as a young fella of about 10 and later as a teenager, my grandmother admonishing me to stay away from two things like the plague:
1) Stay away from tarot cards.
2) Beware of those who call themselves Jehovah's Witnesses.
The first I disobeyed as a result of peer pressure at a birthday party in 1985. All of my friends, having received no such warnings, gleefully had readings done on them. I, well aware of my admonishment, declined, and after excessive badgering failed to stand my ground. I deeply regretted it. The reading was so horrendous, speaking of the loss I knew I would suffer so accurately, that the tarot reader, remorseful at having ignored my repeated requests to abstain only to reveal disaster, took me into their kitchen alone to attempt to comfort a 14 year old who felt an utter fool and was bitterly angry at the pressured betrayal.
The second... well... when I see her again, Grandma can't say she didn't warn me. She can and *will* likely say she told me so.
For anyone who reads this and never met the woman, permit me a moment to give a few of my grandmother's innumerable qualifications.
1) She was personally responsible for my memorizing the Books of the Bible in order from the age of 4.
2) She was personally responsible for ensuring that I knew and spent time every summer with my cousins, who because of their Islamic faith were estranged from the bulk of the family while her husband had been alive.
3) She stayed after me throughout my young life, checking in on me right when I needed a course correction most, counseling me to keep seeking God's face no matter what situation I found myself in.
In short, this woman defined what love really means. When she went to her rest in 2003, there was no question in the mind of anyone who knew her, from the minister who conducted the funeral to all those assembled, as to where her soul would be found when the Almighty resurrects those who followed God.
"Don't listen to the Jehovah's Witnesses," she said. "They are lost."
Some folks always gotta learn to ice skate uphill, though.
I wasn't trying to go out like that, either.
In the face of being a husband and father of 3, I was faced with an unavoidable dilemma. Having been raised in a church whose doctrine betrayed both the collective souls of all of its followers, and my family in particular (as I have told elsewhere in the chapter entitled Betrayer), I was cast adrift, aware in my heart that I was still wholly responsible for the spiritual development of my family, and would stand before God and account for it someday.
My resulting quest to find a church home was filled with dead ends, and firsthand introduction to truly dangerous men feasting on their congregations. Someday I will discuss my time in Creflo Dollar'$ World Changer$ Mini$trie$. No, my "s" key works just fine.
But I digress...
My grandmother died less than a year before my first child was born. But she had met my wife, and she and I had the chance to talk together at length before she passed. She was a fervent listener to Dr. Charles Stanley's television broadcast, and as his First Baptist Church is located in the city where I live, she suggested that I attend his church. I did, and found his message to be closer to the scriptures than anyone else I had seen who was on display, when his political views and opinions were not lacing the sermons. When they did, I found myself in agreement more times than I was not. So when my daughter was about 2, I began taking her with me.
But my temple was not occupied by the Spirit of the Lord. So I was not worshiping Him with my life, nor was I submitting my entire will to Him. So it was inconsistent, as I had selfish pursuits that demanded my time away from work and sleep, and I permitted those things which satisfied my flesh to hold dominion over me.
So in the end I stopped attending that church. It was too far from the suburb where I lived. It was too much of a nuisance to find Julia a dress that fit her. It was too much to think that the 4 of us at the time would be able to consistently make the trip with our small people. I had too much World of Warcraft gaming to do...
Full of myself. Full of excuses. Full of Pride and all it's dominion.
And full of paranoid fear of dying in my sins. Full of knowing that my attempts to live a good life were going to get the gates of heaven slammed shut in my face like everyone else with the hubris to delude themselves thus. Full of my grandmother's warnings being ignored. Full of preached "Whats" and devoid of any "Hows". I was failing myself, my wife, my children. They deserved better from me.
Excuses, excuses, excuses.
Into the midst of this soup of fear and loathing, the Jehovah's Witnesses showed up at my door.
I had taken pride, in my youth, at being able to gun these people down at my door with one question:
"If only 144,000 people will be saved, and y'all have been around long enough for there to be millions of you, what's the point?"
I remember being 14 and saying this to a couple of ladies at the iron wrought glass doors on Bainbridge Street, and watching them frown, look at each other, and turn around and walk back down the steps.
Nearly 25 years removed from that event, I hit this man (we'll call him Smith...) in the head with the same question.
Smith answered truthfully.
"That isn't the meaning of the 144,000. If you were told that by any other Witnesses, or they could not answer it, they should not have been at your door."
Smith was the first to show that he was serious about speaking to someone who was not a lemming by passing that simple litmus test, and as such had earned the right to hold spiritual conversation with me, as far as I was concerned. He opened his "bible" (lower cased and in quotes for reasons that I will be very clear on here) and showed me what the 144,000 represent.
I was frank with him. I told him of my church history... that I was not someone who had no exposure to the church or the Bible, but the son of a preacher--in fact the son of a long line of preachers. I told him of the grandmother who loved me and showed it in her dedication to her life with Jesus, of her devotion to seeing to it that her grandchildren knew the Books of the Bible and Scripture verses at an age where most people discredit a child's ability to absorb such things.
Smith was patient. He listened to me describe them as villains I was warned to steer clear of, and seized on the fact that I did not know *why* I was to steer clear of them.
"Jesus replied, 'Your mistake is that you don't know the Scriptures, and you don't know the power of God." Mark 12:24
Ignorance of the Word of God marks us as prey. And once a predator smells it on the wind, they will attempt to surround and hem us in with all the tricks they possess, to first fatten us and lull us into a sense of security, before devouring us.
He gave me his issues of the Watchtower and Awake!, and returned the following week to talk some more. He introduced me to his wife and other members of the local Kingdom Hall over the course of the next year; all of them polite, all of them knowledgeable in their faith. They pointed out discrepancies in the doctrines of the church; some of which I knew, many of which I had been completely unaware, casting in iron my growing distrust for the church and its myriad truths exchanged for outright lies.
At every juncture, with each new piece of information, I made Smith stop, at times unable to initially accept much of what he claimed. Some of it was so far outside of the realm of what every other church that claimed to follow Jesus declared in their doctrines that I immediately rejected it. I would tell him that I would research what he said thoroughly, using God's Word and recorded history.
But my ignorance was a known quantity now, and their lies were so well mixed with truth as to be indistinguishable most of the time. They *know* their faith, in a way that church goers by and large never even strive for, let alone reach. They take some of the Bible's precepts on how a church is supposed to conduct itself and truly put it to practice--their children read from their "bible" and from their own more detailed version of the Watchtower right there in the Kingdom Hall along with them. The Halls are small in number, everyone is accountable to one another, and they show love for one another using a format closer to what the Apostles employed in the early church to anything I have seen before or since, so the indoctrination permeates the entire building full of worshipers. They practice spreading their teaching in the same manner, and adhere to real truths within the Word, which makes them well disciplined.
Bane and Neo struggle over the weapon. Bane is disarmed. Neo gains the upperhand, grabs Bane by the throat and beats his face with the other. Bane, struggling, reaches for a live electrical conduit, grabs hold of it, and burns it into Neo's face, whereupon Neo screams and covers his eyes in agony. Bane recovers and realizes that the weapon, just at Neo's feet goes ignored. Neo removes his hands to reveal eyes burned and cauterized. Bane smiles and backs away from Neo.
Agent Smith (as Bane): "You should see yourself, Mr. Anderson."
Neo stumbles toward him, completely blind. Disappearing into a dark adjoining room, he is taunted into following.
Agent Smith (as Bane): "Blind Poseidon... You're a symbol for all of your kind, Mr. Anderson. Helpless. Pathetic." Hefting a pipe and brandishing it in preparation to swing at the approaching Neo, he continues, "Just waiting to be put out of your misery..."
But eventually, the ability to use sleight of hand with one who earnestly prayed every day to learn the truth and not be deceived failed Smith, and the lies began to expose themselves, and the facades erected in answer became flimsy, and then non-existent.
Exposed Lie of the Jehovah's Witnesses Number 1: Threefold:
a) The Romans did not crucify Jesus upon a cross, but a stake--a single piece of wood; and
b) that σταυρός (stauros) referred only to one piece of wood in ancient Greek, not the two which form the cross shape.
c) There were no references to a cross at all for the first 3 centuries of Christianity; until Holy Roman Emperor Constantine had his "In Hoc Signo Vinces" ("with this as your standard you shall have victory", or the more well known, "In This Sign, Conquer") vision... a two greek letters Chi and Rho juxtaposed upon one another in what became called the Christogram.
I remembered the "IHS" symbol on the cloths covering every church altar, in both Nazarene and Babylon... I mean, Plymouth UCC, and learning that in confirmation class that the monogram stood for the first three words of In Hoc Signo Vinces. The detail lent credence to their accusation by virtue of my own feelings of betrayal.
But in all things, I prayed for the truth, whatever it was. And not to be deceived.
Then, I read the following:
"Seneca the Younger, who was born around the same time Jesus was, and who died in AD 65, indicates that the word "crux" was applied to crosses with a transom: "I see crosses there, not just of one kind but made in many different ways: some have their victims with head down to the ground; some impale their private parts; others stretch out their arms on the gibbet."[20] The word here translated as "gibbet" is "patibulum", properly speaking, the crossbeam that, at least in Rome, the condemned criminal was forced to carry on his shoulders to the place of execution and to which he was then nailed or bound.
And between 100 and 200 A.D., "Lucian, Celsus, and Origen himself use the verb "ἀνασκολοπίζω", which originally meant "to impale", of the crucifixion of Jesus. It was considered synonymous[35] with "σταυρῶ", which also seems to have originally meant "to impale", and was applied also to the gibbet of Jesus' execution; but the shape of the gibbet is compared by Origen to that of the letter Τ.Pseudo-Lucian too, in the final words of his Trial in the Court of Vowels, identifies the shape of the σταυρός with that of the letter Τ. And, as already mentioned, in Prometheus on Caucasus he describes Prometheus as crucified "with his hands outstretched".
I also read: "The second-century Odes of Solomon, probably by a heterodox Christian, includes the following: "I extended my hands and hallowed my Lord, /For the expansion of my hands is His sign. /And my extension is the upright cross (σταυρός)."
And this: "Like the Epistle of Barnabas, Justin (Martyr (100-165 A.D.) saw the stretched-out hands of Moses in the battle against Amalek as foreshadowing the cross of Jesus: "If he gave up any part of this sign, which was an imitation of the cross (σταυρός), the people were beaten, as is recorded in the writings of Moses; but if he remained in this form, Amalek was proportionally defeated, and he who prevailed prevailed by the cross (σταυρός). For it was not because Moses so prayed that the people were stronger, but because, while one who bore the name of Jesus (Joshua) was in the forefront of the battle, he himself made the sign of the cross (σταυρός)."
All written at most well over 100 years before Constantine was even born, the first by a man born during the reign of Caesar Augustus just as Jesus was, and witness of the Siege of Jerusalem 38 years after the Jesus' death, resurrection, and ascension. All written by Greek scholars well versed in the language of scholars and the meaning of the words they wielded, all very explicit on the shape of the gibbet upon which the Son of God was crucified.
All documented proof that their threefold lie was just that; a damnable fabrication!
Next!
Exposed Lie of the Jehovah's Witnesses Number 2: Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, was not also God, has no deity, and should not therefore be worshiped, but was merely the first creation of God.
I almost bought their reasoning. Their quoting how Jesus said 'The Father is greater than I" in John 14:28 was used to infer that He supported their view.
That was before I read 6 Chapters previous in the same Book, ""I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!"" John 8:58.
I AM. The same timeless phrase used by the Father when He instructed Moses on what to say to Pharaoh. A breakdown of the Hebrew words in the original text describes this further: "It is important to observe the distinction between the two verbs. Abraham's life was under the conditions of time, and therefore had a temporal beginning. Hence, Abraham came into being, or was born (γενέσθαι). Jesus' life was from and to eternity. Hence the formula for absolute, timeless existence, I am (ἐγώ εἰμι)."
You can not be from eternity to eternity and not be God, because only Almighty God Himself reserves that condition for Himself; "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End." Revelation 22:13 Jesus spoke those words in John Chapter 8 in the temple, and *that* was when the people, who had been called children of the devil already, decided to stone Him. He had declared His identity as God right there in the Temple of Jerusalem. Another lie brought to ruin by the Word of God.
Bane swings for Neo's head when he get's within range... and misses as Neo ducks under it. Stunned, Bane swings again, only to have his arm blocked, the arm twisted and locked in Neo's own. The shocked expression on Bane's face is met with Neo's burned eyesockets staring into him.
"I can see you..."
Whereupon Neo kicks Bane's legs from under him, steals the weapon from his hand, breaking the arm that held it in the process, and aims a sure blow to the kneeling Bane's head.
The Witnesses pull this off because these people have committed a crime worse than that done by Thomas Jefferson with his own Bible, snipping out what he couldn't stomach.
These people simply wrote their own Bible, a project they began in the 1950s and completed the first edition in 1961, and each time they come across a discrepancy with their theology, they just change... THEIR "bible" to fit the theology. The resulting blasphemous collection of pages they call The New World Translation.
The website GotQuestions.org (http://www.gotquestions.org/New-World-Translation.html) addresses this in succinct fashion thusly:
"The New World Translation is unique in one thing – it is the first intentional systematic effort at producing a complete version of the Bible that is edited and revised for the specific purpose of agreeing with a group's doctrine. The Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Watchtower Society realized that their beliefs contradicted Scripture. So, rather than conforming their beliefs to Scripture, they altered Scripture to agree with their beliefs. The “New World Bible Translation Committee” went through the Bible and changed any Scripture that did not agree with Jehovah’s Witness’ theology. This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that as new editions to the New World Translation were published, additional changes were made to the biblical text. As biblical Christians continued to point out, Scriptures that clearly argue for the deity of Christ (for example), the Watchtower Society would publish a new edition of the New World Translation with those Scriptures changed."
The article goes on to cover specifics, with knowledge of the uses of classical Greek and the verses they bastardized. Some they modified tenses, or removed capitalizations. Some words they omitted altogether, as in the case of John 1:1, which in actual Bibles reads, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." In their sodium saccharin New World Translation, this says, "In the beginning the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god."
They added an article that was not in that place in the Greek, and diminished the value of the word "God" to lowercase, ignoring the sentence structure and meaning of the Greek, "kai theos en ho logos" or, "and God was the Word."
Who would check the Greek and verify these people? People don;t even read their Bibles, so why would they do something even harder and check these people's claims? Who would learn the language and the sentence structure?
If a seeker of the truth would truly SEEK it, they would read in 2 Timothy 2:15 that we are to STUDY to show ourselves approved, as a workman that need not to be ashamed, RIGHTLY dividing the word of truth.
But we don't!
THEY KNOW THAT WE ARE JUST AS AGENT SMITH SAID. HELPLESS! PATHETIC! JUST WAITING TO BE PUT OUT OF OUR MISERY!
Through gritted teeth, Agent Smith whispers, "It's not over, Mr. Anderson... it's not over..."
Neo swings the pipe. Bane's skull is shattered. The spirit of Agent Smith inhabiting him scatters into bits of code.
See your enemy.
Post Script: It is Saturday night. The Jehovah's Witness is a no-show. I am Steven's sense of dull surprise.
But I'm patient.
Bane levels the weapon Neo had brought into the ship's hold at Neo, finger on the trigger.
Neo: "What do you want??"
Agent Smith (as Bane): "I want what *you* want..."
Neo: "..."
Agent Smith (as Bane): "Yes... that's it, Mr. Anderson. Look past the flesh. Look through the soft gelatin of these dull cow eyes, and see your enemy..."
Neo: "No...!"
Agent Smith (as Bane): "Oh yes, Mr. Anderson."
Neo: "It can't be...!"
Agent Smith (as Bane): "There is nowhere I can't go. There is nowhere I can't find you."
Neo: "That's impossible...!"
Agent Smith (as Bane): "Not impossible. Inevitable. Goodbye, Mr. Anderson."
In life, we will encounter those who masquerade as friends long enough to get in range of vital organs and strike, as Smith hoped to do to Neo in The Matrix Revolutions. Of these, some are even unaware of the damage that will be wrought upon those organs, ignorant of even an intention to do any harm. They are ignorant because they wield reinforced lies; dipped liberally in corrupted biblical truth for tensile strength. They then wield their lies with abandon, and have done so for so long and with such efficiency that they can neither distinguish their lies from the truth, nor see how their efforts will cause the unending torment of so many souls.
Today, if he shows up at my door, I will tell one of these enemies of my soul that I both know him for who he is and precisely why. I will tell him that he and all of his ilk are unwelcome in my home, that his cover is completely blown, and I now know him for both who he is and to whom he belongs.
It took years of research to reach this place. What I have learned I will now share with you, that you may never fall victim to these purveyors of lies.
Had I not, in my quest to know the truth, been earnestly praying to God, and *trusting* Him, to allow me to both learn what is true *and* prevent me from being deceived, I may very well have been devoured by these people.
The purpose of this portion of my blog is to arm those who follow Jesus with what is required to ward these people off... people who are successful because their prey is ignorant of God's Word. I will put here the sum total of nearly two years of sojourning with these wolves which masquerade as shepherds, that you may see your enemy who inhabits their clean, polite veneer.
"For such men are false Apostles, workers of deceit, making themselves seem like Apostles of Christ. And it is no wonder; for even Satan himself is able to take the form of an angel of light." 2 Corinthians 11:13-14
The Preface
Well... Grandma was right, as usual.
I remember, as a young fella of about 10 and later as a teenager, my grandmother admonishing me to stay away from two things like the plague:
1) Stay away from tarot cards.
2) Beware of those who call themselves Jehovah's Witnesses.
The first I disobeyed as a result of peer pressure at a birthday party in 1985. All of my friends, having received no such warnings, gleefully had readings done on them. I, well aware of my admonishment, declined, and after excessive badgering failed to stand my ground. I deeply regretted it. The reading was so horrendous, speaking of the loss I knew I would suffer so accurately, that the tarot reader, remorseful at having ignored my repeated requests to abstain only to reveal disaster, took me into their kitchen alone to attempt to comfort a 14 year old who felt an utter fool and was bitterly angry at the pressured betrayal.
The second... well... when I see her again, Grandma can't say she didn't warn me. She can and *will* likely say she told me so.
For anyone who reads this and never met the woman, permit me a moment to give a few of my grandmother's innumerable qualifications.
1) She was personally responsible for my memorizing the Books of the Bible in order from the age of 4.
2) She was personally responsible for ensuring that I knew and spent time every summer with my cousins, who because of their Islamic faith were estranged from the bulk of the family while her husband had been alive.
3) She stayed after me throughout my young life, checking in on me right when I needed a course correction most, counseling me to keep seeking God's face no matter what situation I found myself in.
In short, this woman defined what love really means. When she went to her rest in 2003, there was no question in the mind of anyone who knew her, from the minister who conducted the funeral to all those assembled, as to where her soul would be found when the Almighty resurrects those who followed God.
"Don't listen to the Jehovah's Witnesses," she said. "They are lost."
Some folks always gotta learn to ice skate uphill, though.
I wasn't trying to go out like that, either.
In the face of being a husband and father of 3, I was faced with an unavoidable dilemma. Having been raised in a church whose doctrine betrayed both the collective souls of all of its followers, and my family in particular (as I have told elsewhere in the chapter entitled Betrayer), I was cast adrift, aware in my heart that I was still wholly responsible for the spiritual development of my family, and would stand before God and account for it someday.
My resulting quest to find a church home was filled with dead ends, and firsthand introduction to truly dangerous men feasting on their congregations. Someday I will discuss my time in Creflo Dollar'$ World Changer$ Mini$trie$. No, my "s" key works just fine.
But I digress...
My grandmother died less than a year before my first child was born. But she had met my wife, and she and I had the chance to talk together at length before she passed. She was a fervent listener to Dr. Charles Stanley's television broadcast, and as his First Baptist Church is located in the city where I live, she suggested that I attend his church. I did, and found his message to be closer to the scriptures than anyone else I had seen who was on display, when his political views and opinions were not lacing the sermons. When they did, I found myself in agreement more times than I was not. So when my daughter was about 2, I began taking her with me.
But my temple was not occupied by the Spirit of the Lord. So I was not worshiping Him with my life, nor was I submitting my entire will to Him. So it was inconsistent, as I had selfish pursuits that demanded my time away from work and sleep, and I permitted those things which satisfied my flesh to hold dominion over me.
So in the end I stopped attending that church. It was too far from the suburb where I lived. It was too much of a nuisance to find Julia a dress that fit her. It was too much to think that the 4 of us at the time would be able to consistently make the trip with our small people. I had too much World of Warcraft gaming to do...
Full of myself. Full of excuses. Full of Pride and all it's dominion.
And full of paranoid fear of dying in my sins. Full of knowing that my attempts to live a good life were going to get the gates of heaven slammed shut in my face like everyone else with the hubris to delude themselves thus. Full of my grandmother's warnings being ignored. Full of preached "Whats" and devoid of any "Hows". I was failing myself, my wife, my children. They deserved better from me.
Excuses, excuses, excuses.
Into the midst of this soup of fear and loathing, the Jehovah's Witnesses showed up at my door.
I had taken pride, in my youth, at being able to gun these people down at my door with one question:
"If only 144,000 people will be saved, and y'all have been around long enough for there to be millions of you, what's the point?"
I remember being 14 and saying this to a couple of ladies at the iron wrought glass doors on Bainbridge Street, and watching them frown, look at each other, and turn around and walk back down the steps.
Nearly 25 years removed from that event, I hit this man (we'll call him Smith...) in the head with the same question.
Smith answered truthfully.
"That isn't the meaning of the 144,000. If you were told that by any other Witnesses, or they could not answer it, they should not have been at your door."
Smith was the first to show that he was serious about speaking to someone who was not a lemming by passing that simple litmus test, and as such had earned the right to hold spiritual conversation with me, as far as I was concerned. He opened his "bible" (lower cased and in quotes for reasons that I will be very clear on here) and showed me what the 144,000 represent.
I was frank with him. I told him of my church history... that I was not someone who had no exposure to the church or the Bible, but the son of a preacher--in fact the son of a long line of preachers. I told him of the grandmother who loved me and showed it in her dedication to her life with Jesus, of her devotion to seeing to it that her grandchildren knew the Books of the Bible and Scripture verses at an age where most people discredit a child's ability to absorb such things.
Smith was patient. He listened to me describe them as villains I was warned to steer clear of, and seized on the fact that I did not know *why* I was to steer clear of them.
"Jesus replied, 'Your mistake is that you don't know the Scriptures, and you don't know the power of God." Mark 12:24
Ignorance of the Word of God marks us as prey. And once a predator smells it on the wind, they will attempt to surround and hem us in with all the tricks they possess, to first fatten us and lull us into a sense of security, before devouring us.
He gave me his issues of the Watchtower and Awake!, and returned the following week to talk some more. He introduced me to his wife and other members of the local Kingdom Hall over the course of the next year; all of them polite, all of them knowledgeable in their faith. They pointed out discrepancies in the doctrines of the church; some of which I knew, many of which I had been completely unaware, casting in iron my growing distrust for the church and its myriad truths exchanged for outright lies.
At every juncture, with each new piece of information, I made Smith stop, at times unable to initially accept much of what he claimed. Some of it was so far outside of the realm of what every other church that claimed to follow Jesus declared in their doctrines that I immediately rejected it. I would tell him that I would research what he said thoroughly, using God's Word and recorded history.
But my ignorance was a known quantity now, and their lies were so well mixed with truth as to be indistinguishable most of the time. They *know* their faith, in a way that church goers by and large never even strive for, let alone reach. They take some of the Bible's precepts on how a church is supposed to conduct itself and truly put it to practice--their children read from their "bible" and from their own more detailed version of the Watchtower right there in the Kingdom Hall along with them. The Halls are small in number, everyone is accountable to one another, and they show love for one another using a format closer to what the Apostles employed in the early church to anything I have seen before or since, so the indoctrination permeates the entire building full of worshipers. They practice spreading their teaching in the same manner, and adhere to real truths within the Word, which makes them well disciplined.
Bane and Neo struggle over the weapon. Bane is disarmed. Neo gains the upperhand, grabs Bane by the throat and beats his face with the other. Bane, struggling, reaches for a live electrical conduit, grabs hold of it, and burns it into Neo's face, whereupon Neo screams and covers his eyes in agony. Bane recovers and realizes that the weapon, just at Neo's feet goes ignored. Neo removes his hands to reveal eyes burned and cauterized. Bane smiles and backs away from Neo.
Agent Smith (as Bane): "You should see yourself, Mr. Anderson."
Neo stumbles toward him, completely blind. Disappearing into a dark adjoining room, he is taunted into following.
Agent Smith (as Bane): "Blind Poseidon... You're a symbol for all of your kind, Mr. Anderson. Helpless. Pathetic." Hefting a pipe and brandishing it in preparation to swing at the approaching Neo, he continues, "Just waiting to be put out of your misery..."
But eventually, the ability to use sleight of hand with one who earnestly prayed every day to learn the truth and not be deceived failed Smith, and the lies began to expose themselves, and the facades erected in answer became flimsy, and then non-existent.
Exposed Lie of the Jehovah's Witnesses Number 1: Threefold:
a) The Romans did not crucify Jesus upon a cross, but a stake--a single piece of wood; and
b) that σταυρός (stauros) referred only to one piece of wood in ancient Greek, not the two which form the cross shape.
c) There were no references to a cross at all for the first 3 centuries of Christianity; until Holy Roman Emperor Constantine had his "In Hoc Signo Vinces" ("with this as your standard you shall have victory", or the more well known, "In This Sign, Conquer") vision... a two greek letters Chi and Rho juxtaposed upon one another in what became called the Christogram.
I remembered the "IHS" symbol on the cloths covering every church altar, in both Nazarene and Babylon... I mean, Plymouth UCC, and learning that in confirmation class that the monogram stood for the first three words of In Hoc Signo Vinces. The detail lent credence to their accusation by virtue of my own feelings of betrayal.
But in all things, I prayed for the truth, whatever it was. And not to be deceived.
Then, I read the following:
"Seneca the Younger, who was born around the same time Jesus was, and who died in AD 65, indicates that the word "crux" was applied to crosses with a transom: "I see crosses there, not just of one kind but made in many different ways: some have their victims with head down to the ground; some impale their private parts; others stretch out their arms on the gibbet."[20] The word here translated as "gibbet" is "patibulum", properly speaking, the crossbeam that, at least in Rome, the condemned criminal was forced to carry on his shoulders to the place of execution and to which he was then nailed or bound.
And between 100 and 200 A.D., "Lucian, Celsus, and Origen himself use the verb "ἀνασκολοπίζω", which originally meant "to impale", of the crucifixion of Jesus. It was considered synonymous[35] with "σταυρῶ", which also seems to have originally meant "to impale", and was applied also to the gibbet of Jesus' execution; but the shape of the gibbet is compared by Origen to that of the letter Τ.Pseudo-Lucian too, in the final words of his Trial in the Court of Vowels, identifies the shape of the σταυρός with that of the letter Τ. And, as already mentioned, in Prometheus on Caucasus he describes Prometheus as crucified "with his hands outstretched".
I also read: "The second-century Odes of Solomon, probably by a heterodox Christian, includes the following: "I extended my hands and hallowed my Lord, /For the expansion of my hands is His sign. /And my extension is the upright cross (σταυρός)."
And this: "Like the Epistle of Barnabas, Justin (Martyr (100-165 A.D.) saw the stretched-out hands of Moses in the battle against Amalek as foreshadowing the cross of Jesus: "If he gave up any part of this sign, which was an imitation of the cross (σταυρός), the people were beaten, as is recorded in the writings of Moses; but if he remained in this form, Amalek was proportionally defeated, and he who prevailed prevailed by the cross (σταυρός). For it was not because Moses so prayed that the people were stronger, but because, while one who bore the name of Jesus (Joshua) was in the forefront of the battle, he himself made the sign of the cross (σταυρός)."
All written at most well over 100 years before Constantine was even born, the first by a man born during the reign of Caesar Augustus just as Jesus was, and witness of the Siege of Jerusalem 38 years after the Jesus' death, resurrection, and ascension. All written by Greek scholars well versed in the language of scholars and the meaning of the words they wielded, all very explicit on the shape of the gibbet upon which the Son of God was crucified.
All documented proof that their threefold lie was just that; a damnable fabrication!
Next!
Exposed Lie of the Jehovah's Witnesses Number 2: Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, was not also God, has no deity, and should not therefore be worshiped, but was merely the first creation of God.
I almost bought their reasoning. Their quoting how Jesus said 'The Father is greater than I" in John 14:28 was used to infer that He supported their view.
That was before I read 6 Chapters previous in the same Book, ""I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!"" John 8:58.
I AM. The same timeless phrase used by the Father when He instructed Moses on what to say to Pharaoh. A breakdown of the Hebrew words in the original text describes this further: "It is important to observe the distinction between the two verbs. Abraham's life was under the conditions of time, and therefore had a temporal beginning. Hence, Abraham came into being, or was born (γενέσθαι). Jesus' life was from and to eternity. Hence the formula for absolute, timeless existence, I am (ἐγώ εἰμι)."
You can not be from eternity to eternity and not be God, because only Almighty God Himself reserves that condition for Himself; "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End." Revelation 22:13 Jesus spoke those words in John Chapter 8 in the temple, and *that* was when the people, who had been called children of the devil already, decided to stone Him. He had declared His identity as God right there in the Temple of Jerusalem. Another lie brought to ruin by the Word of God.
Bane swings for Neo's head when he get's within range... and misses as Neo ducks under it. Stunned, Bane swings again, only to have his arm blocked, the arm twisted and locked in Neo's own. The shocked expression on Bane's face is met with Neo's burned eyesockets staring into him.
"I can see you..."
Whereupon Neo kicks Bane's legs from under him, steals the weapon from his hand, breaking the arm that held it in the process, and aims a sure blow to the kneeling Bane's head.
The Witnesses pull this off because these people have committed a crime worse than that done by Thomas Jefferson with his own Bible, snipping out what he couldn't stomach.
These people simply wrote their own Bible, a project they began in the 1950s and completed the first edition in 1961, and each time they come across a discrepancy with their theology, they just change... THEIR "bible" to fit the theology. The resulting blasphemous collection of pages they call The New World Translation.
The website GotQuestions.org (http://www.gotquestions.org/New-World-Translation.html) addresses this in succinct fashion thusly:
"The New World Translation is unique in one thing – it is the first intentional systematic effort at producing a complete version of the Bible that is edited and revised for the specific purpose of agreeing with a group's doctrine. The Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Watchtower Society realized that their beliefs contradicted Scripture. So, rather than conforming their beliefs to Scripture, they altered Scripture to agree with their beliefs. The “New World Bible Translation Committee” went through the Bible and changed any Scripture that did not agree with Jehovah’s Witness’ theology. This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that as new editions to the New World Translation were published, additional changes were made to the biblical text. As biblical Christians continued to point out, Scriptures that clearly argue for the deity of Christ (for example), the Watchtower Society would publish a new edition of the New World Translation with those Scriptures changed."
The article goes on to cover specifics, with knowledge of the uses of classical Greek and the verses they bastardized. Some they modified tenses, or removed capitalizations. Some words they omitted altogether, as in the case of John 1:1, which in actual Bibles reads, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." In their sodium saccharin New World Translation, this says, "In the beginning the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god."
They added an article that was not in that place in the Greek, and diminished the value of the word "God" to lowercase, ignoring the sentence structure and meaning of the Greek, "kai theos en ho logos" or, "and God was the Word."
Who would check the Greek and verify these people? People don;t even read their Bibles, so why would they do something even harder and check these people's claims? Who would learn the language and the sentence structure?
If a seeker of the truth would truly SEEK it, they would read in 2 Timothy 2:15 that we are to STUDY to show ourselves approved, as a workman that need not to be ashamed, RIGHTLY dividing the word of truth.
But we don't!
THEY KNOW THAT WE ARE JUST AS AGENT SMITH SAID. HELPLESS! PATHETIC! JUST WAITING TO BE PUT OUT OF OUR MISERY!
Through gritted teeth, Agent Smith whispers, "It's not over, Mr. Anderson... it's not over..."
Neo swings the pipe. Bane's skull is shattered. The spirit of Agent Smith inhabiting him scatters into bits of code.
See your enemy.
Post Script: It is Saturday night. The Jehovah's Witness is a no-show. I am Steven's sense of dull surprise.
But I'm patient.
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