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This Example covers both book and movie. The book is based on actual events which occurred in 1967 in Ohio, so is an important Tactical Example. The movie is a fictionalized later positing of the same event occurring a generation later. The movie is included to show how mesmerizing-to-the-public are the Satan&Co. tactics. Neither the movie nor the book are being criticized in any way. The objective is to see how Satan&Co. use everything to herd us in the direction they want to go -- to use us, to keep us from having a happy relationship with God. The people thus used are ALL of us, so there is never any justification for pointing the finger.
If you didn't read Mothman but did read Ghostly Encounters by Frances Kermeen, you'll find nearly identical interviewee and author reports in the latter; classic Satanic Signature in at least 8 of the stories in that book, with the #2 Signature "Greek" play being utterly obvious: a) the entire nature of the Greek contact with 'the gods' was through a "medium" -- a term which is a blatant, sarcastic, and deriding Satire Against The Mediator, Christ; b) most all god myths depict the exact same coy impishness as the 'ghosts' play with people. Additionally, the slapstick behavior of these entities runs rife: like Keel, Ms. Kermeen was 'visited' and annoyed in much the same way, first hooked by a childhood playmate wittily named "Mr. Sitarumia". That anagram is probably a Greek noun (umia ending) related to the Cross in some way (I've not decoded it yet, I'm not sure if the "Mr." should be translated as part of the anagram, and I've no time to analyse further). The book also recounts a dead giveaway term for demon influence, "mind transference" (aka telepathy): that's how the 'ghost' communicates. In Scripture, the term could be styled 'thought transference'; a number of Biblical keywords denote its function. (Keel's book uses a similar term, which you'll read about below with connection to Derenberger. Bear in mind that Keel and Kermeen probably don't know about each other, and surely don't realize they observe/experience the exact same 'entity' behaviors, even including the electric and phone games. More on this topic follows below.)
On top of that, a dead giveaway was in a passage where a 'ghost' was seen (by one interviewee) "trying to enter" a Christian's "body": demons can't enter Christians, but if you don't know your Bible Doctrine, you don't know you are seeing it in action, and thus the 'ghost' is really a demon telling you he's a demon by portraying that action to your mind -- for, demons well know they can't enter a believer's body. [A relative just mailed me Ghostly Encounters; why, I don't know -- he knows nothing of my website. I've no time to review the book as for Mothman, below, but what's said re Mothman easily applies to Ghostly Encounters, which recounts the same phenomena: except, the phenomena were called 'ghosts'. Students of Scripture on mediums etc. know better: demons use/influence/possess mediums, and that's what PYTHIA (@Delphi: that title is a fabulous pun, if you know Euripedes' Ion) WAS. That's why the Hebrew OT passage on Saul and the witch of Endor is so illuminating -- she never had contacted any real dead person, so a real Samuel returning up from Hades' Paradise frightened her. There are so many OT and NT passages on how ghosts/apparitions/manifestations are really demon games, you'd think that after 3400 years of having some Scripture in writing, mankind would at least have learned this much. Besides, for millennia demons have advertised themselves to entice people to play with them EXACTLY in the same way -- changing only what names they use to characterize their beingness. Are we humans too dumb to ever learn, or what? Does no one realize that "crossing over" means to cross over to Satan&Co.'s turf? A double-entendre of typical demon wit? Cross, get it?]
Can we be dumber to not notice that both the 'aliens' and the 'spirits' behave in exactly the same way? Only difference is the claimed origin, for crying out loud. In Scripture usage, such punning is a type of concatenation: the art of taking part of a verse and coupling it with part of another verse to vastly elucidate the truth. Here, the 'concatenation' is, alien+'spirit', for both groups tease humans the same way, make Greek wordplays, act like the ancient Greek gods did, etc. So they can't be unfamiliar with Earth, and they can't be human; so OF COURSE they know what Gramma BlahBlah did/said in that hotel room in 1860 or whatever -- THEY WERE THERE.
So what is the concatenation's revealed, elucidated truth? Duh. Alien+spirits=demons, just as the Bible has always taught. "Spirit", of course, means breath/soul/immateriality/life/Holy Spirit in both the Bible's Hebrew and its Greek. The term is used for demons many times, usu. with 'evil' put in front of the noun to clarify which immaterial class of beings is meant. 'Alien' is a Bible key word for someone opposed to God -- has a similar usage in Scripture to the Bible terms 'strange', 'far', 'enemy', and not-of-God. Does no one get this obvious advertisement? Amazing. I bet the demons tune into programs like John Edwards' "Crossing Over" just to get their daily haha. That poor and very nice guy, like so many others, can't see how he's being used. A Goodyear Blimp, this. [What's so tragic about programs like "Crossing Over": watch the way the demons communicate to the medium; he's never 100% sure of what the input means. So, there must always be a lot of volitional attraction and participation. They make the medium and the targets work at getting the meaning of the input. People are so negative to God, they are willing to work at such silliness? So don't see how they are being derided by all the fuzziness? Same stuff happened in the 1800's with the spiritist movement. Oh well, we learn from history that we learn nothing from history...]
Bearing in mind that, as explained at length in Part III, our "NOW" is an invisible epoch for Trial purposes, Satan&Co. best divert attention away from the Real God and the Real Spiritual Life by focusing on the VISIBLE. So you miss altogether, God's Invisible Plan For Your Life, in favor of the cheap, feely thrill.
Satan&Co. know all too well God's style: so, they mimic it. Also, they DERIDE God and His Plan by IMBALANCED stress on visible flash, so they thus OBFUSCATE His "sons" purpose by loud appeal to a SUBSTITUTE idea of God: one that makes man entertained. That man falls for this substitute in every form promulgated, from Ascetic-God to Zany God, is the sad testimony of history. One version of Zany God, of course, is the idea that some men are to be made privy to upcoming events. Prophecy: ahhhh, the magic word. Knowing the future. Yeah, baby, I'm special because I know the future! Me, not God. Yeahhhhhh: about the only thing more hypnotizing to man than the (legend of) Dracula himself, is the idea that man can foreknow the future. Kinda like strong catnip, for cats. Or, a nice-sounding flutey tune, for lemmings. Pied Piper and all drown, hooray!
So as you read man's history and track all his stories about what prophetic disclosure he's had, you find two salient classes of output: 1) official/real Bible prophecy, which is always clear, laconically dull, and due to man refusing God; and 2) all other prophecy, which is always fuzzy, exciting (e.g., obtained via Pythian ecstatics).. and due to man refusing God. Well, that's the real reason, but it's kept invisible. Extracting the prophecy uses so much mystery and ceremony, the recipient feels favored, so the 'noise' of all that trouble MASKS the obvious derision: why isn't 'god' simple and direct? Why does the 'god' play cat-and-mouse games, which clearly demonstrate DERISION, certainly not love? Moreover, the one so 'favored' is never quite told he's getting an 'in' on the future due to his goodness; there's always some catch, some ambiguity, some 'out'. So, whether Aborigine or Aztec, Zoroastrian or Zulu; so, whether ancient or modern, Satan&Co.'s prophecy style is always intriguing -- with a big wallop at the end. Shows a little leg. Hides everything else until the last minute, when the bell tolls for thee.
Why would Satan&Co. sponsor this type of ooohhhyyyy supernaturality? Cuz the satanic play, as noted in the "Signature" section above, is always slapstick; cuz, it hooks people; cuz, then people are motivated to either ridicule such topics, or to become gushy about them. Thus the idea that supernaturality might actually sensibly exist, is blocked from the human mind.
That's a trial lawyer's tactic from time immemorial, to redefine something, and thus help his side win. Done by the best of trial lawyers, Satan&Co. ("Satan" means "opposing lawyer" in Hebrew.) Thus the idea that non-silly supernaturality exists (i.e., a real God Who makes sense), is cut out from the public mind. So the only options for a human to fit in with his peers become the satanically-defined ones: either believe something silly, or scoff at it. Clever 2nd-Temptation-style salami tactic, eh?
Since the author of the book isn't sure (or won't admit) WHAT 'entities' tormented both him and his interviewees so much, he's not trying to score points for the Bible, ok? God doesn't need salesmen. Demons, though, do. You do with the data whatever you like. Preferably, you'll yawn and avoid all such ploys; just live in God's System, don't get goofy, scared, or hostile.
So the question becomes, is this story a demonboy toy? If it is, what kind of story is UNDERNEATH the story line? Or, is this story just someone's imagination run amok, replicated in reaction by those who read/view it? Well, let's see. So, let's examine some details of book and movie, to check for any satanic sponsorship clues which are demonstrably BEYOND the cleverness of any individual associated WITH the book or the movie. Obviously, John Keel is telling what he believes is the truth in the book. Just as obviously, the movie's purpose is to make money, so it can be assumed that those who made the movie, didn't necessarily believe what Keel wrote. Nonetheless, as noted in the "Signature" section, demons just can't resist revealing themselves. So, if they really were involved in the events Keel recounts; if they really wanted Keel to see them (which seems obvious, in both book and the movie versions), then we should find telltale signature characteristics.
Let's look at #2 Signature Characteristic, the demonic penchant for giving themselves away via Greek-god concepts. The geographical area we call ancient Greece was composed of various city-states which had reached a mature, 'civilised' level of demonism within their culture. So, they were pretty irreverent yet also respectful, in their relationships with the 'gods'. Classical Greek drama often has statements in it which deliberately allude to specific Scripture (i.e., verses). This fact doesn't mean you should avoid Greek drama, for crying out loud (let's not be goofy). It DOES mean that the pattern there is repeated in other genres, i.e., the 'coincidence' that 'extraterrestrials' have names or make statements which are likewise allusive compared to original Scriptural terms/doctrines.
So, as Keel was even aware in his book, the 'contactee' is being DERIDED, noisily, when the 'extraterrestrial' uses a name which is a play on Greek gods. Unnoticed by Keel, maybe: back in ancient times, it was widely known that the Greek gods were really demons. And: Greek plays have 'actors', get it? So, in Point Pleasant (and elsewhere, against whomever) the demon is acting as an extraterrestrial: which of course he really IS, hahahahaha! [By the way, during Church Age you will not be able to see any angel in the Trial. Since God is not magic, any angel you think you see is all a thought-transference headgame played on you by Satan&Co. Or, maybe on you by yourself (far less vivid, far more controllable).] That's the same kind of witty derision they played in the Gospels. Making fun of whomever they possessed.
Words they use will be plays on ORIGINAL-LANGUAGE terms in Bible or Greek drama, too: because everyone knew that Greek 'gods' were really demons.
For example, the very name "moth", according to page 96 of Thomas Harris' Silence of the Lambs, "was 'anything that gradually, silently eats, consumes, or wastes any other thing.' It was a verb for destruction too..." The movie version of Mothman demonstrates its theme in the library scene and afterwards, where Alan Bates (the theme's spokesman) shows Richard Gere a picture of the very nocturnal moth Harris mentioned in his book (and displayed in the movie version of Silence of the Lambs). Which, of course, the movie has Bates hasten to say, "they [the creatures] cannot be explained.. rationally." Because, the idea of such supernaturality is not within the "consensus ..of what constitutes reality" to the so-called rational human mind. So, we disbelieve. Or, we get all engrossed, gushy about supernaturality, to escape our boredom!
Of course, in Biblical Hebrew, the famous qal doubled "muth muth" in Gen2:17 comes to mind: dying spiritually, you will die physically, the Lord warned Adam about 'that' Tree. Demons are destroyers, aren't they? Abaddon, Appollúon (Rev9:11, Greek spellings in verse)? Wingéd, of course, like any famous 'god' should be: no angel needs wings to fly. (Wings depict, among other things, virtuous thought, Bible Doctrine -- note Ezekiel's depiction of what the wings PROTECT; note how the cherubim faced on the ARK, and touching wingtips.) Note this: FOUR wings, like a moth, not six, like a seraph. Satan was cherubim, four-winged -- the seraph (six-winged) titles were battlefield awards, pre-Adam, but after Satan's fall; most angels have no wings.
The significance of the anagram "Indrid Cold", who was the supposed representative FOR Lanulos to Derenberger, isn't immediately apparent. Definitely demonic, though, even before you decode the anagram: note well how "Indrid" tells Derenberger he's a good subject for AUTOSUGGESTION!
Oh: it's real important to remember that in the Bible, nearly all the Old Testament people-names were really commentaries, phrases, descriptions. And nearly all of the names were some kind of expression ABOUT God. That's why you see so many -el endings (for the first two letters of God's 'last' name, Elohim). So, Israel means "Prince of God", Jacob means "Chiseler/cheater", etc. For 'Indrid' to take a first name anagram which actually SAYS something is very much in tune with Biblical practice.
You can surely say the anagram has something to do with derision. Latin gerund (verbal noun) OR gerundive (verbal adjective) for laughing/joking/ridiculing/ smiling, "ridend-", is definitely in the anagram. Of course, almost anyone you interview who claims to have seen an angel will tell you they grin/smile, etc. Spartan shields' smiling "Gorgon" is a frequent "archetype" painted or carved all over the world's pantheonic art, so the idea of gods smiling in derision is pretty common. (Jung is wrong to have called it a mere universal archetype; folks SAW those images in their minds, else they couldn't have painted them. I've seen some in New Mexico's Indian ruins so close to the Spartan ones, it's like they copied each other.)
The posited middle versions of the anagram require some explaining. Because in Latin the genitive case has so many uses, the meaning listed for #2 and #3, varies greatly. Latin term "Doceo" means "to teach"; in Greek, it's spelled doKeo (Greek has no "c"), and means to critically-judge, opine, adjudge, value someone as low, with a distinct connotation of DERISION. Paul uses the Greek term to good effect in 1Cor12, beginning around verse 19. Since both Latin and Greek have an objective genitive, "Indrid Cold" comes to be an anagram which satirizes the 'student'. English "docile" (Lat: docilis) means 'teachable', and of course the object of "Indrid" (Laughing's!) Teaching/Opining was poor Derenberger, who really believed he was flown to Lanulos! Angels were teachers in OT (demons like to think of themselves as teachers, too, esp since that's what the Holy Spirit does for Church).
Rather fitting, this salami tactic, this sleight-of-hand, since reversal is the entire game of Satan&Co. (Scripture translations frequently get reversed from Greek meanings via similar games.) Obviously, there's more cleverness than described here: maybe the foregoing isn't the right decoding. Clearly though, Derenberger wasn't smart in Latin, Greek, or Hebrew, nor would he satirize himself! What I don't understand, is why no one made a point of the name being an anagram, since "Lanulos" was so obvious; I'd have figured it out in high school had I then heard of it, along with a bizillion other kids who played with acrostics and Mad Magazine in the 1960's. If you know a thing's reality/meaning just HAS to be independent of the person telling you about it, then you know you're not dealing with hallucination or bombast. Satan&Co. gave the store away, here. And no one caught on?
Moreover, no human can do such breathtaking realistic 3-D thought transference even to himself; let alone, to a whole group. So you (and most with you) really think you see lights in the sky, MIB, etc. So those who are uninterested or not so far gone don't 'see', because their lack of interest means 'permission' wasn't given; or, even if they do see, they remain uninterested, so again no 'permission' was given. Further: no human can mess up electricity so well as the book depicts. [Angels, being made of light, obviously could have a tremendous impact on any biology, electrical or radio waves or equipment; assuming such stuff in the book wasn't thought-transference. Trial Rules do circumscribe what they can do; further, there are probably internal (natural) limits. It's not worth much further speculation. The more you know God, the more you know Christ, the less interested you will be in demonology.] Demons make any 'prediction' true if it serves them, and if they can do it under Trial rules.
Movie provides the distinct impression in one of its subplots that the year 2004 election is to be influenced by these creatures. Of course, for millennia Bible has explained demons are very involved with rulers. (See Flood passage and Job monikers "sons of God"; Ez28; the titles of the demonic table of organization in Greek, words like archons etc. as used in Col1:14-18, end Romans 8, Eph6, other places.)
Of course, it was quite a nice touch, both in the movie and the actual event, that the 'mothmen' and other demon-produced hallucinations leading up to the main tragedy, all take place during the ONE time of year people actually have a thought or two about God: between Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Satire of the highest order. Do you notice, no one in either book or movie actually seeks help FROM God? Only the whining "why me" accusation (see Gen3, how Adam and the woman accuse God) enters the mind. Do you realize now, why God lets this stuff happen? Why Satan&Co. are authorized to discipline us? LOL, we are so negative to God, absent some tragedy, we don't even think about Him, even during the celebration of His Birth! No wonder the demons openly mock us.
In one paranormal-phenomenon book Keel mentions that the 'contactee' says, "the truth is hidden". What neither Keel nor the poor guy apparently knew: a frequent NT Greek term for "truth" is aletheia, which literally means, the UNhidden! So some demon is really having fun with that contactee, saying, The UNhidden is hidden! Get it? Hiding in plain sight?
So Satan&Co.'s self-advertisements are not at all hidden: even Hollyweird unknowingly gets used, a generation later, to repeat the story. That Bible uses a whole slew of Greek drama words and concepts in both Gospels and every NT epistle is a fact which was widely taught even 50 years ago; so when the events of Keel's book took place (1967), someone should have clued in due to the 'alien' names and anagrams. Moreover, Greek drama is very well documented; the original languages are preserved; and Greek cultural concepts were avidly aped by Rome, and are very much a part of Western culture through now. Principle: there's no excuse not to know the wordplay, because Greek drama is referenced. So one big extra clue that this 'mothman' thingy was of satanic origin is how its obvious hints tweak the entire Christian clergy for being too stupid to catch onto them. So, again, note the clever result of the Satan&Co. strategy to pitch supernaturality as either deriding, or believing in, silliness. The whole thing was written off as some goofballs having funny brains. Just as people shallowly view Scripture, so also they shallowly analyse anything they don't understand. So the people affected, were left clueless and hurt, thinking themselves crazy, with no way to learn how to be extricated from the mess they got themselves into. Hopefully, some of them did finally realize they were under satanic derision; hopefully, some of them found Bible Doctrine under a good pastor. Else, they would have to end up dead, in an insane asylum, drunk, or drugged. Who can live through such an experience, and not be traumatized? Remember: any real supernatural experience is not fun. It's shocking.
The 'just curious' consent all the time. We prove that only our bodies are adult. And one thing a child likes, is magic. Oooh-Ahh. Those debunking the magic-lovers are likewise children. Ahhh, the magical put-down!!! Build your happiness on another's unhappiness for 15 minutes of fame! Oh how well the unhidden is hidden!
Naturally, if you surf the internet or talk to people, you'll find many who say "this [book, movie] is stupid". If pressed for whys, the response is generally, "This guy made it up to sell the book [movie]". In short, derisive skepticism.
Alternatively, there are the folks who oh brother believe it! Whether they believe 'mothman' is some real creature like Bigfoot, or some divine sign, or.. you name it -- all these folks have one thing in common: the thrill of belief. Which often translates into, the thrall of stupidity. For example, on the internet you'll find a crop of 'Christians' who, like the movie's Gordon Smallwood (played by Will Patton), have so little faith in Bible, they have no discernment whatsoever. Hence, any word in life which is also in the Bible, must therefore prove the Bible right. So, says one of the sites on the internet (I'm not making this up): because 'mothman' has wings and the Bible talks about angels in Revelation having wings, a) it must be TRUE that 'mothman' exists, and b) "mothman" must be an angel. (LOL: again, I'm not making this up; website is mostly black, with some red sidebars. Why is it supernatural-topic websites so often have black backgrounds and illegible red text?) Never mind that both book and movie go to some lengths to show this 'angel' is not at all pro-human; never mind that Bible also says Satan&Co. are angels. So no, not all angels are on God's side. So these 'Christians' wouldn't know their Bible if it bit them...
While the apparent reaction to Keel's 1967 book was to accuse him of making it all up for a sensational sell; while as a result of the movie Pt. Pleasant has become a weirdo's shopping mall á la Roswell; while it's politic to badmouth the idea of supernaturality, there is some too-clever-for-humans truth, here. So you're looking at demon sponsorship.
Most tellingly, we are hooked by means of silliness: for the details in the Mothman story ARE slapstick, above all else. So by making it silly, the demons deride, which is the "D" in Satan's D-I-O-S strategy. By deriding, we are made both salesmen FOR derision, and the objects of derision. The joke is on us, and we too are laughing at someone else.
In the book, people either scoffed or scarfed, too: they crammed their cars on bluffs, replete with picnic fixins', to watch the UFOs coming in nightly at precisely 9pm. (What, and no one thought it odd UFOs would be so punctual, but the government, so secretive?) So, now people (mostly Christians, of course!) cram the internet with their various posturings, focusing on the information as if there really were UFOs or beasties or angels.. or, making fun of those who so believe. You can see much the same thing when you review what programming PAX TV chooses to show. If it's Christian, it must be weirdo...
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Neither will be receptive. The scarfers want to be entertained, therefore define "God" as silly; and the scoffers don't want anything to do with 'god', since the scarfers believe in 'god'. So both camps throw out the baby with the bathwater, and Satan&Co. laugh heartily.. at them. Having thus polarized the debate, Satan&Co. cause the wide swath of humans 'in the middle' of these two camps to conclude it best to not think about supernaturality. Better to focus on mowing the lawn, and vaguely define "God" as Someone who likes potlucks in Peoria on Sunday. So, bingo! Everyone is even more reticent to look at/for God, than they were before! Clever strategy, huh. Does that sound like a strategy any human would be smart enough to use? But of course we humans are too dumb to live. Nor does that strategy cease. Did you notice how most of network TV for 2005 is focused on supernatural programs for primetime which are largely silly in nature? You got your choice of demanding spirits who bug young marrieds (just like Kermeen's book, just like the Mothman book) on Tuesday or Friday ("Medium" and "Ghost Whisperer"). You got your choice of electronic aliens who wanna triple our DNA strands ("Threshold") and infect our minds, inhabiting our bodies; or dragons from prehistoric times who do the same, and are now coming up from the abyss of magma ("Surface"); you got the Fielding-type Lord of the Flies triple-population experiment, aka "Lost", which to the viewer is pitched as some alien intelligence, playing mindgames with them; or "Invasion", in which aliens fall down from the sky into the water, and try to inhabit humans. Do you see the same theme running through all these programs? Do you know each of them is so replete with Bible metaphors, you'd have to be a Biblical scholar to recount them all? So you just know the humans writing and producing these programs are clueless. "Sea" in Bible means large masses of people; obviously the invasion/inhabitation of humans depicts Genesis 6 and all the demon junk the Bible reluctantly portrays; the parallel to the Biblical explanation of demon impishness and hostility of these 'aliens' isn't even veiled. "Surface" of course is almost a bald-faced retelling of Revelation 9, though surely the writers of the show don't recognize that. And of course the dragon is always cute... The list can go on and on. Again, clearly no human is smart enough. (Surely the networks aren't conspiring to tell Bible stories about demons during primetime, right? Sheesh.) Notice how DARK most of the new 2005 shows are. So not only is the supernatural silly, it's nasty. Best not to believe in it altogether. Or, to use it as a cheap thrill...
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CAVEAT EMPTOR: If you only want a 'magical' relationship with God, that's all you'll get. If you want to judge "God" is silly (so you don't believe in Him), that's what you'll get. Matt 7:1-2! See also Col3:25, Hosea 6:7, Gal6:7.
Either want God for Himself, or don't. But avoid supernatural stuff. You can't outsmart Satan&Co. God IS Supernatural by nature, but living under His Power in His System is not something you will feel. God doesn't want love based on the feely. Based on Truth, yes; anything else, no. And if you grow up spiritually, you'll come to have the same attitude, recognizing anything else as tawdry fluff (yawn here).
This section needs extensive re-writing and amplification. However, the gist of it remains correct. Much more evidence needs to be provided from the Koran itself. So this section will be rewritten, clarified and amplified, later.
In other sites, I've noted that the fastest and easiest way to determine which God(s) is the real God(s), is by reading the world's holy books. Obviously, since they all differ, some of these holy books are written by Satan&Co.: 'counterfeit serpents', to trap people away from God. How to tell a counterfeit? Well, a book will reflect the character of its author. Remember Satan's Grand Strategy: to defeat God on God's Own Turf, and God's Own Terms. Well, the Arabs are sons of Abram, so are part of God's Promise, thus God's Turf. So, it's no wonder that the Koran well displays his genius.
Satan also burlesques the Arabs in Koran, and it is soooo bitter and fine, how he does it. Makes you want to cry forever. And Look: once you know that the Dome of the Rock FULFILLS the interim-time of both prophecies, then you know without a doubt that God is the God Of The Bible. The structures aren't disputed by any historians or scholars; the Bible books AS books aren't disputed with respect to whether they are in print. Everyone knows and can see, at any second, that these Bible books are in print. Everyone knows and can see, at any second, online, the Wailing Wall (and probably, the Dome, too). So, then: Satan is burlesqueing the Arabs, By Proving Bible Right. He burlesques everyone..see?
The Koran, by stark contrast, took a lot of work to do, as the following paragraphs will illustrate. So, the Q'uran symbolizes the very best of Satan's non-Bible script-games. (The games he plays with the Bible are far keener, and take up the balance of this website after the next subsection.) Satan's Anti-Semitism Major Tactic is just as much aimed against Arabs as against Jews. For, the Arabs are also sons of Abraham, and are likewise protected to a certain extent under God's Gen12 promise to Abram. Never forget that. Current history in this year 2003 will not make sense unless you understand that it's the Anti-Semitism Tactic which 'defines' our epoch, but with this twist: Satan's trying to use Anti-Semitism to wipe out Christians, too. We are all in this together, we are all the "People of the Book", as Satan himself says in the Koran, and anyone can become a person "of the Book" simply by believing in one of the three faiths. So the whole world is involved, here. So, let us be forewarned.
So, let us begin the review of the Q'uran. You'll probably need a copy of the Koran handy to check out all the references below. At times, you'll see me mimic the Koran's writing style (from Pickthall's translation, which Muslims consider very devout). Please understand: I LIKE Muslims. This section is to show how Satan hates them, using their own hatred of God to destroy them. For Arabs and the Muslim faith (which came from the Arabs) are indirectly covered by the Genesis 12 protection clause (sons-of-Abraham). Satan is out to destroy ALL sons of Abraham, preferably by getting them to exterminate each other. You can trace that strategy in the Bible, and you can see it play live any time you view world news.
Since a lot of technical material regarding specific Suras follows, I'll just summarize here how the D-I-O-S overall pattern with respect to the Koran works. The first and last, Derision and Substitution, will be stressed in the review, for if you see both the initial tactical approach (Derision) and its result (Substitution), you should be able to see the other two in many more ways than I have time to list. So:
So, now consider: the Q'uran's origin cannot be human. Perhaps some of the world's 'holy' books have been of human origin, but in the case of the Koran, it's physically impossible. The Q'uran (Arabic transliteration: term means "Lecture", "Teaching" -- play on the word "Torah") has too many plays on the original languages of Biblical verses. Such a comprehensive genius would have required an expertise with Scripture beyond anyone alive at the time of Mohammed. Remember, the Bible was in the hands of very few people in 600AD; those who had it, couldn't easily read the horrible script: they had to chant it slowly to know the words. Looks kinda like this:
See? Too-slow reading means the brain can't get meaning. So, then: how could 7th-century Christians ever have the time to cross-reference the Bible so well, they could link verses in the original languages, which were NOT available to them, and with lightning speed, to boot? But that's what the Koran does! And then subsequently write poetic verse which plays on the double-entendres in widely disparate verses of the original Hebrew, Greek (etc)! Do you realize what an expert someone would have to be, to do this? Yet that's precisely what the Koran does. But no Bible scholar then (or now) could do that. Moreover, Mohammed received his 'inspiration' and dictated it, so there was no time alone for research.
Also, a jihad. [Islam is supposed to be a sort of update on the Bible, but seems to maybe leave as 'okay' the covenants to both Jews and Christians, if they believe that only Allah is God. So, Islam itself essentially boils down to believing in Allah, and doing the moral works and worship the way the Q'uran prescribes. If you violate the prescriptives, you go to hell unless you repent, even after you believe in Allah, unless He decides to forgive you anyway. There is no animal sacrifice, only a few rituals, some set prayers -- today, these are called the "Five Pillars of Islam"; special importance is placed, OT-style, on the meditation over the Q'uran's verses; ideally, you govern your country by it, too. Thus, Moslem moderates in the Sunni sect will tell you that "jihad" is only a spiritual, internal struggle, and is never intended as military war against the infidel. Most of the Koranic verses support this interpretation. However, the Hadith, which functions kinda like our OT and Acts, of course shows a great many wars. Thus the radical/militant subsects in Islam get their justifications.] For all the wonderful tenderness and charm which constitute each Sura verse (and the wordplay is utterly fabulous), the psychological defense mechanism known as "projection" runs rife throughout the Koran; kinda like Chapter XI in Mein Kampf, which described Hitler and Nazism, but was output as the nature of 'the Jew'. Satan, though, expresses his projected Anti-Semitism and Anti-Christian venom in the subtle style of Antony's eulogy over the dead Caesar (Shakespeare's Julius Caesar). So, by constant digs within a facade of kindness, the masses are riled up to go execute the murders. Clever. Antony (Satan via the Koranic sura-verses) can blink his eyes in mock surprise: "I came to bury Caesar, not to praise him". Yeah: Satan comes to bury us, not to praise God! See? Projection takes what's true of self, and imputes that to the 'enemy'. Thus, self is innocent. Well, the Bible's Jehovah Elohim isn't so obsessed.
Satan demonstrates (via the Koran) a distinct fondness for Isaiah's, Paul's, and the Hebrews author's writing styles: three writers which the Koran excludes from its definition of "Scripture". Lots of terms in the Koran are wordplays on the Book of Revelation, another book which is excluded from the "Scripture" definition. Thus, in typical OBVIOUS style, Satan affirms that the Bible is indeed the Word of God! But of course, chops off what books constitute "Bible": the chopping-off technique is Satan's signature. ["Torah" in Hebrew usage either means the whole of the Tanakh, or merely the first five books of Moses. It's not clear -- probably deliberately -- which of the two usages of "Torah" is meant by the Koran. Pickthall's annotations seems to say that the Koranic usage of the term stresses the Pentateuch.]
Though he chops off what he calls "Scripture" to man, Satan plays on ALL of it. So, he also keenly plays on terms in the Bible's Apocalypse/ Revelation, viz., Revelation's ultimate God-Man title, "First and Last": see "Iron", v.3. There, it seems like Satan's replying in court to God the Son (who is also our Defense Attorney -- see last part of Heb2 and 4). Moreover, in the Koran Satan uses "We" (sometimes Trinity in disguise!) far more often than the OT does; and, even talks about the "holy Spirit" sustaining "Jesus". "Spirit of Allah" or its equivalent is used maybe a dozen times. These latter two types of "Spirit" usages are deliberate parallels to OT terms (probably to gain credibility). The Koranic usage mocks the multilayered Hebrew and Greek "ruach" and "pneuma", respectively -- the real Bible employs these terms in wordplay, and even in Mohammed's day (and still today!) Christians were confused as to the terms. Mohammed couldn't know that, of course. But Satan would know, especially since he sponsored the confusion (and still does). So, to Mohammed and his audience, it wouldn't be clear what "spirit" meant. So, Satan can mock the Holy Spirit by using the terms as he does in the Koran, and no one is the wiser!
But of course Satan must mock the Holy Spirit, for the Holy Spirit sustained the Humanity of Christ (which a dozen sura verses even admit), thus procuring our salvation. But of course Satan must also mock the Father, since it was the Father Who imputed our sins to Christ, "the Lamb of God" -- and judged them. [Only with Three Separate and Independent INFINITE Gods does INTERpersonal freedom and justice exist without gerrymandering, sham or cost: think about it. See also Part V's "Paradox of Merit" table.] So, Satan can't afford to have humanity recognize that "God" is Trinity, lest the salvation message make sense in both the "Torah" (e.g., in Gen3&15:6, Levitical Sacrifices) and the "Gospel", which the Koran, in one of its rare uses of the Sacred Tetragrammaton, concurs is from THE LORD! [e.g., John 3 and end each Gospel. More about this "THE LORD" moniker will be said a bit later on.]
In the "Cow" Sura (Al-Baqarah), we get this delicious autobiographical sketch of Satan's fall, when "Iblis" refuses to worship man. Of course, the real story is that God the Son wanted to ADD HUMANITY to Himself in order to provide a max-depth gift to Father.. which thus means the angels would be worshipping the GOD-MAN. Satan did find that offensive, as you can tell in Matt4. Even more offensive, to become the servants of man, once man was created: you can tell this by the way demons satirize man every chance they get. Bible is loaded with the satire. So is every non-Bible 'holy book', as you should begin to see, during any extensive reading of this webpage. (See also the "God is not Magic" link on the Home Page.)
Granted, any One of the Godhead could do everything. Granted, any one human can do a lot of stuff. But people aren't alone -- so should God be? I'm not projecting human thinking onto God, but rather posing the obvious question, Koranic style, looking at the "portents" of nature as Allah repeatedly bids me do in the sura verses -- well, don't these "portents" indicate His Nature? So, then: His Nature is SOCIAL. Not "Alone". So, then: with whom will He have rapport on His Own INFINITE Levels? It's kinda boring to preen in front of a mirror or live like the "Omega Man". ["Omega Man" is a old movie starring Charleton Heston. After nuclear holocaust, he was the only uncontaminated human left. For most of the movie, he talks to a bust of (I think) Napoleon.]
More: God must be One Person, all Alone and Unpaid, and is so insecure He can't add Humanity to Himself? For, God Sovereignly 'pairing' Humanity to Himself (the Son) is somehow demeaning (see sura verses with "Majesty" and "Glory" in them), but an unending (final) universe of humans hopelessly inferior, thus hopelessly uncompanionable to Absolute Allah does not demean him? So instead a universe of slavish praisers makes him pleased? Tit-for-tat? Sugar Daddy, or Petty Judge, but never a real relationship? So the only relationship between Allah and humans can be a set of do's and don'ts -- so Allah is stuck with PETS? Whose future isn't above the earth, but UNDER it? [See Ps68:18ff, and Eph4:8ff. As prophesied in the Psalms (which the Koran recognizes also as Scripture, for it notes "We gave David the Psalms"), as part of His Ascension the Lord's Resurrected Humanity led, in Roman-style triumphal procession, all believers who (pre-Ascension) were in Paradise, thus leaving it empty; after that, anyone who believes in Christ goes up immediately to Heaven upon death (just as Christ's human spirit did). So: only unbelievers are left down there. So, at the time the Koran was written, the only people who were under the earth were the unsaved. 'In Torments. Think over the sly meaning, then, when those who are believers in the Koran are promised a future UNDER the earth!]
Satan deftly and correctly says that both ideas end up making Allah need partners, a blasphemy. Further, he makes it clear that these ideas are but interpretations of Scripture by Christians! See how he flaunts the truth in plain sight? At once castigating the Christians for their MISinterpretation of the Real Bible, and at the same time telling his nascent Muslim troupe why those ideas are wrong, yet in a way which slakes any curiosity to even look at what the REAL Bible -- which Koran admits is from The LORD -- actually says! Such brazen arrogance! See how he makes fun of Muslims? Here I am, telling you guys the Truth that the Bible Is From The Real God, and you guys are too uninterested to even examine what that book says, but yet you claim to love 'Allah'? Well, then: you deserve the seductive deception I, The real Iblis, play upon you, with that tender, frequent Koranic catchphrase, "if ye did but know".
SATAN'S TACTICAL KEY ==> Satan accomplishes this derision-and- substitution of Trinity for Macho-Masochist through body-stress: deeming "Infinity" to be spatial in nature, so God can't be more than One Person without being (what RCC calls) "diminished". Bang this idea loudly enough, and no one can recognize how obviously false it is. So the Muslim can only think of One Person, for the same reason. So, if God had a 'partner', God must NEED something, hence is not Absolute. Of course, that argument would be true for humans, even angels -- but not for God. Note Satan's cleverness: it is never acknowledged that God might WANT to create partners, even though He doesn't need to, i.e., because it Sovereignly pleases Him to do so. Moreover, the fact that He did create far lesser beings, makes Him look like His ego can't tolerate 'partners'? For, even Allah is not totally alone, the Only Conscious Person in the Universe: rather, He created.
Thus the believer in the Q'uran is unknowingly forced into a narrow, spatial definition of God which still demeans Him. For, the flipside of Koranic verses explaining God has no partners because that demeans His Majesty (or Glory), is to say that -- wow -- God can't have a partner, for then He has Need. So, He's not Absolute, so not God. Worse, that the only companions He can make, are so-hopelessly-inferior angels and humans. No mediatory way to get nearer His Level of Being, either; so everyone is a masochist, with this great gulf fixed? Yeah, so far down, 'heaven' is under the earth! See how sly Satan is? See how obsessed? That He must deride even a fake concept of a spatial Absoluteness, which he himself created!
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Per that same sura, Jesus is "faultless": ok, and for what reason?
LOL! This "Praised One" is supposed to be Mohammed????!!! The standard Koranic interpretation of that "Ranks" v.6 is that the so-called "Comforter" is Mohammed! But the Bible says it's the Holy Spirit. (John 14, Acts 1:5, 1:8; "Parakletos" in Greek is often translated "Comforter" in the English, but the term is a military term, and means Advisor/Mentor.)
MORE: Satan likens Mohammed to the Holy Spirit! So now, Allah has a partner! Because "Comforter" and its cognate verb is a Bible keyword in the Gospels and LXX; and "Comforter" refers very plainly to the Holy Spirit, because Christ Himself said that's Who Parakletos was (John 14:16-17; term is used in LXX and NT in various forms, e.g., 1Jn2:1). But of course, since Mohammed nor his fellows would know the Greek meaning, how could they know they were being satirized by Satan in "The Ranks" v.6? How can any Muslim know he also is being satirized today, since lo! There's no reason to look at the other part of God's Word! Disobey Allah in the name of believing in Allah's Koran! Look only at the Koran, then! LOL! |
What surprises me the most is how fixated Satan is about Church Age believers, who are the Bride of Christ. See, we Church are called "later time", in Koran's "Event" sura, because Satan, like Paul, is dispensational, so refers to our group by our timeslot, just like the Bible does. Satan's use of the term "later time" is a play on Greek word "eschatos" when used of time ("last days", in many English Bibles). That Satan means Church is even more obvious from his "new creation" link to the wide-eyed houris in "The Event" sura. "New creation", see, is how Paul designates Church Age believers, because we have specially-designed human spirits so to be able to grow up spiritually to become a spiritual (not sexual) 'houri' for the Lord's Humanity: Bride.
This is awesome Koranic wordplay by Satan, but you'd have to know the Greek of 2Cor5 and Eph4:11-16, to "get it". Especially, in context of Mohammed being previously cast as the replacement for the Holy Spirit, since it's the Holy Spirit Who Makes us this "new creation" and puts THE WORD in us to make the Event of the Rapture occur! Awesome! See for yourself,
Just imagine: to this day, most of Christianity, pastors included, remains blissfully UNaware of the Pleroma Plan of God, though the Bible is overflowing with explanation in wordplay after wordplay, as Part III tried to illustrate. Yet the Koran talks about it, written circa 600AD! No, no human caused Mohammed to know this data. As the Koran keeps saying, "if ye did but know".
The Sura is about Judgement Day, Koranic definition. Matt25:32-33 is referenced by the Sura's to-the-right and to-the-left language, since the Lord Jesus Christ is the Ruler and Judge (see the Matt passage in context). Koran doesn't show the rollout connotation, maybe (I would need to see the Arabic for that), but by such a bald reference to the Matthew passage (which IS a rollout, beginning with 2nd Advent, followed by Rev20's Great White Throne), surely Satan knew that. And is tweaking anyone to catch it. Which, who did?
I could go on and on with blatant contradictions to the Bible which the Koran says is from God. Amazing stuff. You really have to read it yourself. Don't take my word for these things, because I'm desperately trying to understate what's there, out of compassion for my Muslim friends! Look: it's easy to get upset at something or someone when they are or do something wrong/irritating, whatever.. but when a whole people is so sold under despite many blatant contradictions in their own holy book, which contradictions even a child can prove.. irritation stops, and sympathy begins. For, if the Koran is holy, and calls as "Scripture" Torah and Gospels, yet contradicts them, then the Koran itself cannot be holy. See? Satan beguiles us all. In Plain Sight.
See? Satan frequently and OBVIOUSLY, DERISIVELY causes the Koran to contradict itself, as well as the Torah and Gospels. In a slapstick manner! But oh boy, accept the Q'uran as Scripture too, don't question it, or you'll suffer a "painful doom"! No arguments, don't be a disbeliever! LOL. So how can one not wonder, when the Bible accounts are so rational, but the Koranic accounts are so weird? shouldn't one question? I mean, how else to tell if the Q'uran is speaking from God? Just take Mohammed's word for it, that he got a "clear proof"? Anyone can say that. Any demon can make a supernatural script. Wouldn't even Allah know that? Of course he would. Doesn't the Koran repeat over and over that it, itself, is a "clear proof"? Clear proof of what, though? Of God's Script..or of Satan's? Shouldn't one try to find out? See, just like Paul says, we are "without excuse", the Bible's equivalent phrase to the Koranic usage of "clear proof" (Rom1:20).
So, in the Koran, a book which is supposed to confirm prior Scripture but update it (a sly play, that, on the greek of Heb7:18, 9:15!), Satan&Co. must reference the content of that prior Scripture, in order to claim the Koran continues the same revelation. Thus, the Koran must also employ the same terminology as the 'prior Scripture'. This three-pronged tactical system (referencing, claiming continuity, using the same terminology) is done to garner legitimacy. Which means, the real target audience for this 'revelation' already accorded sufficient legitimacy to the 'prior' Scripture, thus rendering such a piggybacking of 'new revelation', necessary.
So, supernaturality must accompany such claims, for mankind childishly reasons that all supernatural "signs" come only from a real God. Remember, in the OT and in the Gospels, it was necessary at times for God to do miracles as proof that the message wasn't bogus. So, of course, since Satan&Co. have a whole bunch of superhuman powers, they too would make 'counterfeit serpents', just as they did via Pharaoh's advisors. Trouble is, this is 600AD; no one should have believed any 'signs', for the Church Age began about 600 years prior: a "dead spot" in prophecy (term is my pastor's -- Paul's term is "mystery"). All signs ended when the Canon was completed, as the NT says over and over and over. (Criterion is expressed in 1Cor, end chap13 through first half or so of 14, Ephesians (whole book), Col 1:16-27, Heb1, Rev22:6-21, etc. Part III's "Invisibility" explains more.)
Ok. Here are...
| Telltale Terms of Satanic Authorship in text where they play the God-Role. |
When Satan(&Co.) casts self in the role of Allah, the text will insert 'asides' to -- pssst -- let you know it's really Satan.
A first type of aside is "Lord of the Worlds". It first occurs in the "Poets" sura, from what I can tell (I don't yet have Koran on CD). Gnostic and Kabbala texts, however, are very fond of the "worlds" moniker, using it variantly with "Lord", "King", etc. The Bible NEVER uses this title. [In Bible's original languages, that is -- some English versions mistranslate as "worlds", a term for TIME: maybe, because the Gnostic and Kabbala texts use "worlds" and "Age" (or, "time") interchangeably to designate, as it were, multiple universes. I don't have Gnostic or Kabbala texts in the original languages, so I don't know what words are being used to translate as English "worlds".] Jerome's Vulgate used terra, -ae like modern Spanish uses tierra. Which, is like the Hebrew use of ha-eretz. Bible's Greek uses kosmos in the singular to designate world, never plural; ouranos is used for heavens (Bible's Hebrew is shamayim), and couldn't be translated "worlds". Since English and Spanish didn't exist in 600AD, "worlds" can't be based on KJV, etc. mistranslations.
The Greek word kosmokrator was VERY well known in Greek literature; and, as being a term for Satan, especially IN Kabbalism (which transliterates the Greek term with Hebrew letters). [Here's the copy of Kabbalist citation from the Thayer lexicon entry for Kosmokrator in BibleWorks: cf. Buxtorf, Lex. talm. et rabb., p. 2006 (p. 996, Fischer edition).)* ] The term is only once used in the Bible Greek texts I have (in BibleWorks 5), Eph6:12, and its demonic meaning is there used by Paul. So it was very well known. See a detailed lexicon like Bauer, for citations of other books using the term. In short, this HAS to be a blatant advertisement of demon authorship; the Jews around Mohammed were 'into' Kabbala, and if they knew their Scripture, they'd have known OT never used that title, but kabbalism DID.. So they are being tweaked for their willful ignorance of Bible, and Mohammed wouldn't have known HOW to do that.
This title seems to be a concatenation of what Satan originally wanted to become (cf Isa14+Ez28), plus one of the Greek titles Christ et alia use for Satan in the NT: Ruler of the World (Greek expression varies). So Matt4's Third Temptation is very much in view here. [Bible's term for Satan&Co. varies; the Lord usually preferring to use some participle of archw, to rule, as a noun; but "kosmou", meaning "of this world" is often appended. If you know anything about Greek genitives, this term is very punny. Descriptive genitive of course would come first to mind. But think: possessive genitive also comes to mind, but both ways -- not only does the world belong to its ruler, but its ruler belongs to the world. That is even more punny since kosmos is used, not ge. See, kosmos stresses ORDERED or ORGANIZED, with a distinct tone of mere APPEARANCE (we get English word cosmetic from this Greek word). But I digress..]
So, these and like Koranic sura verses are even more blatant admissions than in "Poets". I'll add more examples after further review (I've got to find the Koran on CD, to do a better search). These many overlappings with the SAME Bible terminology can't be unintended, especially since the Bible keywords used by the Koran all add up to a message that Satan not only wrote the Koran, but also how he plans to win! Think: in At-Tariq alone, the Biblical Keywords all add up to the following: The MorningStar will substitute for the BrightMorningStar by the 2nd Advent by means of "knocking", suddenly (Rapture-as-Discipline, baby) -- it's a blatant claim Satan will win in the Trib before the Lord returns, and he intends to use Muslims to accomplish his goal! LOL, Mohammed couldn't possibly understand all the wordplay!
The Second point is occasioned by the First one, and shows how this second telltale aside constitutes "tricky speech": OT usage of possessives indicate whether the speaker believes in the same "Lord" as his audience. So, for example, "your Lord" in the OT regularly (but not always) means that the speaker doesn't believe, but recognizes that the person addressed, does. So if I say to you "your Lord is Allah", that doesn't mean he's MY Lord, nor does it mean Allah is THE LORD. Allah is, relative to YOU, "your" Lord. Or, so I am saying to you. (LOL I could just assert Allah is your Lord, whether Allah is, or not!) [The grammar term for this distinction is called "aspect" (viewer's view). The aspect of a preposition, of a noun, an adjective, a verb (etc.) gives you critical data about origin, nature, opinion, etc.]
For OT possessives, when used with "Lord", indicate RELATIVITY. In the Koran, Satan makes a much heavier use of possessives than the Bible does. The Bible, by contrast, more often uses "THE LORD"; less often, possessives. Satan therefore, by heavier use of possessives (compared to the Bible), begs the question of WHO 'Allah' really is! Satan therefore never quite asserts that the Koran is from "THE" LORD. See, Koran rarely uses "THE LORD", and then only with reference to REAL Believers in the Bible, viz. "The Prophets" sura, v.56: "your Lord is the Lord" -- (allegedly) said to Abraham; which, of course, is true! But you won't see such a statement said to Mohammed! Truly awesome.
Similarly, in many "Allah" statements: the angelic speaker's statement about Allah reflects his own testimony, but "Allah" to him need not be the same as the one who is Mohammed's "Lord". You'll have to look at these yourself, because there are hundreds of such usages, and you have to look at them en masse to catch on to the importance of this play on Biblical terminology.
The Lord Himself made blatant this subtle differentiation in verses to the Pharisees, e.g. "you are of your father, the devil." David uses the distinction in Ps110:1: "The Lord [Father] said to My Lord [Son], "Sit down until I make Your Enemies a Footstool for Your Feet." [This was a prophecy of Christ's Resurrection, Ascension and Session. Isaiah echoes it in Chaps 53-55, but so does each other prophet. "Footstool" is a very common prophecy in OT. You can see a goodly number of verses even in the English, by simply searching on that term.] Each prophet uses the distinction as well: the wording varies, depending upon what play-on-words is intended. So, syntactically, it's a subtle but keen distinction, as to WHOSE Lord is really THE Lord. See the difference? If "my" Lord is not "the" Lord, I won't use "the" Lord. If "my" Lord is ALSO "the" Lord, I will. So Satan is very careful not to pair possessives with that "THE LORD" moniker, except when talking about folks the BIBLE defines as believers. So, if 'Gabriel' is talking and 'Gabriel' makes a statement about his Lord, the REAL Gabriel really IS an Angel of the Lord, and "the Lord" can be used with him, too. Doesn't matter that 'Gabriel' isn't really speaking. It is the truth about the person being represented as him. (We'll come back to Gabriel in a few paragraphs.)
DETECTION KEY==> All this witty deflection is obfuscated by mellifluous sound. For, Koranic content is marked by precise, studied, ambiguity, but wrapped in the most beautiful poetry. Just like the ancient "Oracles of Delphi". Thus, Koranic verses play the same deadly game as the Oracle of Delphi.
The Delphic Oracular reply was: "If Croesus crosses the river Aly, he will destroy a great kingdom". In the Greek, it was expressed in absolutely perfect and beautiful meter.
The King, who paid for the Oracle, interpreted the reply to mean he'd win if he crossed to attack Persia (under Cyrus). But of course, it was the Cyrus who, having been attacked, crossed the Halys in pursuit of the retreating Croesus -- and thus won his kingdom. So, indeed, Croesus destroyed a great kingdom, alright -- his OWN!
All the Oracles were famous for this type of treachery, which is why Croesus did the turtle-pot thingy in the first place.
This same Delphic quality runs throughout almost every verse in the Koran, esp. in verses containing the word "Allah" with a third-person description; or, without "Allah" but descriptions one could easily interpret to BE "Allah". Satan thus warns the Arabs that it's the Koran which will doom them; he loves playing with truth that way. Try reading the Koran with this subtlety in mind and see for yourself. By the way, the text of every 'holy' book similarly hedges about the identity of its Originator. The Bible does not.
So much for sample blatant hints Satan&Co. use when playing the God-Role.
Now, onto another class of blatant hints:
| Telltale Terms of Satanic Authorship in text where they play the Messenger-Role. |
In the Koran, sometimes Satan(&Co.) casts self as the angel Gabriel, who in real life is the seraph in charge of protection for Gentile nations (among other roles he has).
See, the real God really has NO partners. He Does All The Work, He Does All The Revealing: angels don't have that role. Even, and especially, the giving-out of His Word, which He values even above His Own Name (Ps138:2b)! It doesn't demean Him to directly contact man, just as it didn't demean Him to make man in the first place. It doesn't demean Him, therefore, to go the Ultimate distance: sovereignly, without condition or constraint, adding Humanity to Himself; so that HIS Humanity (and no one else's!) could, independent of His Own Deity, pay for ALL mankind's sins. Completely, Irrevocably, Forever. All By Himself. See? No partners. As it stands written in Isaiah, "I even I am He who removes thy transgressions..as far as the east is from the west" (a distance metaphor for below-the-horizon, never to be seen again). [Romans 5, Philippians 2:5-10, 1Tim2:5 explain the Inner Motive, and Heb2,4,5-7 explain His toward-man compassion Motive. English is clear enough, if you read ALL the passages over and over with your brain on. Try the French Louis Segond, Spanish Regina or English NIV or NASB. Portuguese Almeida might be good, too. I can't read Portuguese that well yet, to be sure.]
Thus, in the real Bible, 100% of the revelation is given directly by God, whether OT or NT; only occasionally are portions of Canon (e.g., in Daniel, Rev) explained by an angel: for, angels are heralds, NOT revealers of Scripture. The Bible's angels don't explain or teach anything until after some human appointed by God received the information DIRECTLY from God. The Book of Revelation is especially helpful here: some angel occasionally explains meanings to John, but Only The Lord tells him to write. For, in the Bible, angels play an ancillary role, and God is the Direct Source. Post-Revelation's completion, because everything now comes ONLY through the Son (no partners! Hebrews 1!), only the Holy Spirit does any revealing, and He too SOVEREIGNLY chooses to ONLY reveal via the Word. Cf Heb1, John 4:24, Chap14, 17; Acts 1:5,8. The Father SOVEREIGNLY and without Partners(!) decreed all this be so: see Ephesians 1. That They Sovereignly Choose Individually to do or not do or partly do a thing never means that they need 'help'. Like, the help of an angel to talk to a Mohammed. So: to claim a 'Scripture' is revealed by an angel, to man, is a blatant advertisement of demonic origin. Period.
Satan&Co. provide many more instances of exposé than the few listed above. Space doesn't permit me to explain them all. I mean, a long explanation is needed to show how, for example, the Koran's Delphic style concatenates the Koranic desert concept of Paradisiacal "shade" with the Greek-literature "shade" which is not at all happy; Greek use of "shade" commonly means a dead person living a less-pleasant life under the earth, with a longing to return topside. Some ancient Hebrew texts use the same idea. So that in the Koran, both "shade" terms concatenate to: shade from the Son means you are so heated under the earth you become a shell of your former self. Again, classic Delphic style, a common Koranic refrain: "in Paradise there will be shade." That's right! One gnashes his teeth in DARKNESS.
See? Satan loves twisting the truth, loves leaving hints that God really isn't 'in' it, loves making fun of his audience for cheating the books, for their lack of due diligence with respect to God's WORD (here, against anyone who believes in the Q'uran). Satan's nothing, if not self-righteous. Satan's love-hate relationship with God, as we saw at the top of this webpage, means he loves and hates the Word, too. So he hates you if you disrespect it: i.e., 'obeying' threats against testing Scripture, for if you really loved Allah, you'd read the OTHER holy book, too. So if he can make you disrespect BIBLE, he despises you. To beat you, he uses really nice-sounding words and lovely 'visions' to make you feel 'chosen', as noted in Part IV. He's out to seduce us and then throw us underneath to those 'gardens where rivers flow' -- yeah, 'gardens' of brimstone and 'rivers' of lava! Just like the child rapist will offer the innocent child, candy or a puppy...
So, he mocks us all; here, anyone dumb enough to be anti-semitic will get permanently sucked into the Koranic prescription. Look: much of the Koran is nice. I've not yet checked the Arabic, but I don't see anything in Pickthall's translation which should justify anti-semitism or anti-Christianity. (Then again, nothing in the Bible justified Christian pogroms of Jews, either, nor 1st-century Jewish persecution of Christians.) But "Nice" is Satan's specialty, and he clearly uses it like Anthony's speech over poor ol' Caesar, to gain POWER. Just as we saw him do with mankind generally, throughout Part I-V. Look: we're weak. We all get sucked into the mellifluouy: Jews got sucked into it, Christians got sucked into it, so Muslims got sucked into it, too. Christ died for all of us, so we are all targets, as indeed is anyone human -- anytime, anywhere. We who are the "People of the Book" are special targets, because the "Book" is Really About God. Satan can't afford to have us recognize that, because then the other folks in the world can more easily notice that the real Bible is..um, real. So he has to make us war with each other. So he'll do anything to blind us. So, check all this out yourself, using the Koran. See if you don't spot Satan's satire and his D-I-O-S strategy, there. And find the REAL 'Allah'.
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But wait! Why doesn't God stop Satan's beguiling?
Oh, because He is as close to you as your next thought. Oh, because all you need do is ONCE believe in Him, your free-will consent for HIM ALONE to permanently save you. Oh, to a REAL Heaven, an irrevocable Heaven, an ETERNAL happiness ABOVE the Earth: as high as God Himself.
For Oh THE LORD! God DESIRES it so, because
Oh, because He and He Alone saved you,
Oh, for that is why Hebrews 1 says He is above ALL.
O, Taste the Lord, for He is Good! |
I realize this review is way too short for such an important book as the Q'uran, especially these days. Please understand: I'm really heartbroken that such beautifully-written words beguile so many nice people. So too, they wonder how I can be so beguiled by 'my' Book. And, I empathize as to why they are so convinced that God wrote the Q'uran. But any book which mocks God and those who believe in it, cannot be from God. Allah is mocked in the Koran, for the Koran says Allah doesn't get paid for sin. So Allah is cast as a masochist. True God would never be unfair to Himself. Doesn't matter that He doesn't need the payment, it's only JUST if He is paid. So the Koran is not from God. But Satan&Co. make it obvious that the Koran is their authorship. They love deriding. Koran is one of the finest pieces of demonic derision you'll ever read.
A really good tactical example for this category will be the current American political wrangling in Congress. The prolife movement and Federal Marriage Amendment satanic ploys are covered in other sites, particularly Paradox.htm, so will not be revisited here. Prolife is covered in the "Prolife" link atop this page (it's at the bottom of the webpage, so hit End and page up a few times, if you'd rather). Chief satanic things in our politics:
Else, the same mental attitudes prevailing as did this time last century, politically. Demagogues should arise within the next 10 years or so, if past is prologue. Then, follows war. This isn't an "end times, brother!" prediction, lol. Only God decides that, and He didn't leave any hints. Instead, "tachu!" Look sharp, stay in God's System, don't get wrapped up in this world, do your job as to the Lord. Kings-in-training are supposed to TRAIN, not get peasanty.
Philosophies also well depict Satan's strategy and tactics. To make one feel good about all the effort involved in squeezing a thought through, important-sounding words are used. Feels so good to say those words! Makes one feel so smart! Satan's signature is likewise displayed in the picayune, long-and-windy quality of such ruminations. To drown you. 'Never a conclusion, always a hamster's wheel: Huff and Puff. Because such hyperventilations are unending, they are 'virtues': "unity", "equilibrium", "cycle of nature", "evolution" -- you name it. Anything epic-sounding, you see, to make you feel GOOD about the fact you never get the pea under the walnut shell chosen. Seriously: once you pick out the fluff, which amounts to every third word, what do you have left? Prepositions? After I parsed Camus' L'Etranger, the only word left was, ennui.
Politics, of course, are even fuzzier and funnier, bringing out how deeply Satan&Co. despise us. Of course, they all stress the body, do's, and are loud. The entire Palestinian argument is in this classic satanic style: what, does NO one see how NONE of the Arab countries ever volunteer to take in their brethren, except in token amounts, and that only for a short while, or when the Palestinians themselves make a stink about inter-Arab non-cooperation? What, does no one check how "the Land" came to be owned by Jews, even before WWI? The Sultan sold them the land. From Time Immemorial, a book by formerly-pro-Arab reporter Joan Peters, might be useful to read.
Also, Feuerbach and Marx or Mao (especially on dialectics) -- these three manifest Satan's genius style; they also (unwittingly) emphasize how bitter Satan is over God's second Righteousness facet. Mein Kampf, anti-semitic websites, and any of the gnostic writings seek to seduce/'hook' first by emotion -- but in the name of reason. Suck out all the real reason, and leave just the sound of reason. You know, like: Dianetics. Wow. Big word: must be true, then, lol. Never mind that it's just another rehash of the ol' gnostic fantasy of us all being one big lightBorg, back before we got too curious and took on bodies. And so it goes.
Or, for folks who like their gods splashy, Satan's kind enough to provide chanting and other sound-related rituals in a goodly number of philosophical or political contexts, especially lately: it's not called religion, anymore. In WWII, of course, you had the Wagnerian concepts Hitler so loved to hear. Ober-menschen: SuperMen with Super-reason. Magic.
If you're willing to do some history-legwork, compare how Marx 'just happened' to write Das Kapital at the time that major MSS (Scripture, manuscripts) were discovered by Tischendorf and Tregelles, and being collated; at nearly the very time that the US Civil War had produced a massive increase in evangelism; at nearly the very time that around the world, England was having unprecedented success with its missionaries. This was hard on the time when Joseph Smith made his 'discovery', too. Darwin, too.
Then there's the Scopes Trial. Scopes shouldn't have been prosecuted, so here we're looking at Christian APOSTACY, which obviously was idiotic then. The Christian idea of Genesis had been wacky for centuries (Bible doesn't say God created the earth in six days, but that He RESTORED it in six days, taking longer than He needed to, in order to give man a way to organize his time concepts.) So this is a tweak a century after Tischendorf and Tregelles' discoveries -- that the Christians didn't look in the original-language manuscripts to even learn what God really wrote in Genesis. (Had they bothered, there'd have been no TRIAL.)
Sidebars: Darwin was a Christian, by the way, and didn't claim man came from apes. Why isn't that remembered? Why is it that what used to be taught as "adaptation" is now (incorrectly) called "evolution"? It's not the same at all (adaptation doesn't require transmutation of the species). Maybe Satan doesn't want the fallacy to be discovered, so hides "evolution" in "adaptation", now. Adaptation is correct, evolution, no: see Evolshort.htm.
Frankly, I've got no quarrel with evolution being taught in school: it's helpful for learning research processes, and even more, for seeing what a stupid idea it is to credit, even if one is an atheist -- for evolution is just another reincarnation idea (pun intended). Still, the connection between how interest in God changes and things like this, keeps recurring. Predictable as the law of gravity.
On a larger historical scale, note the number of demagogues arising in key countries at about the same time during the first part of the 20th century. WWI basically ended the Hapsburgs and the Romanovs: odd. So the time was RIPE then for demagogues, and up they rose? And this is a coincidence? Especially just before WWII, you had Franco, Peron, Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, Lenin/Stalyin, Roosevelt, the Arab princes, Nasser, that guy in Japan (Tokugawa? No, different name). Most of these guys were newly-come into power; Mao still hadn't won overall, but the Long March had really changed his fortunes for the better; Chiang was definitely on the wane. These were all strongmen, placed curiously like you would set up pieces in the old game of Battleship (you know, with the big piece of cardboard between you and your opponent so each couldn't see the others' ship deployments).
What matters Biblically is that between 1900-1950 there was a tremendous surge of interest in Bible, owing to those discoveries by Tregelles and Tischendorf, and by about 1900 serious study was really high; then comes WWI, in opposition (you know, to make people doubt God because bad stuff happens); so, as usual, it worked; so, by about 1930 (Depression, see Lev26), interest in Bible began to wane seriously, but some were actually even more deeply interested; so up comes yet another war, WWII; after that, interest dropped precipitously. In the 1970's, it arose again, but most went so apostate so fast, that the overall decline remained rapid. Even Loyola had to close its Latin Department, in the midwest (maybe elsewhere, too). What passes for seminary training now is a farce.
Historically, you can trace how war follows a massive surge of interest in Bible. Discoveries of Bible MSS also follow a surge of interest. Then, the interest declines, and then eventually the texts are lost again. Doesn't look like that can happen, anymore. So the interest must be very high somewhere, now. Hence the homogenization-of-culture effort being promoted. Lukewarm interest in God because high interest in goodies. Then will follow war again. Watch how China goes. Next war involves China (which has a terrific surge of interest in Bible right now).
Changes of Interest in Bible determine how history goes more than any other factor. Conclusively. This factor is the hardest to trace, currently, except perhaps in one's native country. Sales of Bible-related stuff could be tracked, I guess, but a surer indicator is the frequency of independent churches which aren't based on a cult leader, just quietly Teaching BIBLE. They will always be few, so you measure the importance kinda like GNP/GDP: a very small upward change is extremely significant, and the overall percentage will be small (i.e., 3% is a huge percentage). If I were among the ruling oligarchy of a nation, I'd be extremely interested in promoting individual BIBLE teachers who just study and teach. Not, to state-sponsor them (China is making that mistake), but to make laws allowing them as much freedom as possible (i.e., stringent separation of church-and-state, which the US is violating, as I type). Free independent Bible teaching is the best protection for a nation's people; it's the underpinning for a strong people, army, economy; for Bible interest justifies God materially BLESSING the nation. Lev26, explains.
So those nations which will be at the forefront of history and the driving sources of it are those nations where there is a sustained and continuing rise in, or level of, interest in Bible qua Bible. Right now, the up-and-comers are Brazil, Korea, China. Maybe India (depends on whether the apostate version is dominant), Russia (not sure) and Africa (pockets of high interest there, but not widespread).
US is on the wane, but we've been on the wane many times in our short history, and we have a tendency to wake up once spanked. However, 9/11 didn't wake us up the right way. Christian right is wrecking the US, as I type. Worst plague on a nation is a politically-active Christianity (which isn't Christian nor right, but Satan's Rev17 harlot). Greatest blessing to a polity of ANY type is a Christianity which is simply interested in learning Him. That's why Brazil, Korea, and China are likely the winners, by the end of the 21st century (or some other countries who I don't know about, but have interested-in-God populations within).
It's the people who are sick -- no politician ever helps a nation, so no politician is to blame. It wasn't the Sanhedrin or Pilate, who executed Christ -- it was the common vote; until that happened, He might have escaped all the brutality and injustice. So: interest in Bible increasing in the US is our only hope. My pastor warned us in 1997 that he had stopped "recruiting for the pivot" (mature Christians of a sufficient number to save the nation), and started teaching us of the sustaining power of those few Pleroma-stage believers (OT version was Jeshurun, like Moses). He speculated that (based on ratio of Moses to the population of Exodus Israel) if only 25-50 people in the US population were Pleroma-stage, it would hold together. Else, not. (Part IVb covered that dynamic in the "Church makes History, Not Prophecies" table.)
The Book of Mormon is in that category of fake-bible books which are really aimed at seducing Jews or Christians. These abound. For the inter-Testamental period, you have fake bible books like Maccabes, etc. For the pre-Revelation period when the NT was being written and disseminated, you have fake books like gnostic Gospels, etc.
Remember: demon-authored stuff always has certain SATIRICAL-plot/style characteristics: plus, regarding i'm-a-Bible-book claims,
Again, where demon-authored books are targeted to believers, demon-authorship keys are more blatant misuses of Scripture -- to the point of YELLING their obvious apostacy. Of these pseudopigraphic targeted-to-Jews/Christian books, the best I've seen is the Book of Mormon; it's a mix of Christian gnosticism, Catholicism, and garishly-used Bible-verse snippets.
Catholicism in any stripe has as its central tenet that man must DO something besides believe in Christ, to be saved. Technically, like Mormonism, in catholic faiths one IS saved by faith in Christ, but to go to Heaven one must still get rid of the taint of original sin; Mormonism states this same problem differently, more along the lines of the apostate Protestant gotta-stay-in-the-faith-to-be-saved (which catholicism also generally teaches). Various observances and do's are to accomplish this taint-removing 'endurance'. [So of course all the "endure.. end" -type Bible verses are divorced from their real original language meanings and OT precedents; for, IF a sword of Damocles is not over your head, will you give money to that church? So, naturally, all these faiths must Malign The Effectiveness Of Christ's Work. Mormonism calls that work "infinite atonement" toward the end of 2Nephi -- beautifully true! -- then takes the pea away from you by saying "Nay" to faith-alone in the last chapter. NOTE WELL: phrase used is "I say..Nay." Not "God says"! Typical demon attorneyism!] So if one falls short of observances, etc., one doesn't go to heaven, exactly. Some among Catholics call it "purgatory"; Mormonism has a Dante-like hierarchy of other-places.
So the Bible-verse snippets carefully pasted together with egregious falsehoods lends credence to this long-familiar pre-Christian concept of man-must-do-something. It's the way the snippets work with the falsehood which yells demon authorship, beguiles the doctrinally-ignorant. Amazing: they use the true parts to make the false parts stick out, and the CONTENT of the true parts explains why or what is false about the false parts! Usually, with deft keywords you'd have to know how the Real Scripture uses, to clue in! It's like a massive exam with trick questions! A fabulous example of this genius is in 2Nephi25:20, which is covered in the "2Nephi25:20" (flesh-colored) table below.
By contrast, the Book of Mormon has many vertical and horizontal concatenations operating simultaneously, esp. in 2 Nephi. Virtually every major NT book is referenced, collated, vertically and horizontally related; problem is, the whole picture painted is a caricature satire against both Jews and Christ. So BOM really deserves more coverage than I'm giving it in this subsection, but I've yet no time to say more right now. Later I'll beef up this Tactical Example with a lot more detail.
BOM demonstrates itself, then, as a demon work of superior quality and finessed satire, especially in its blatant usage of unknown-to-Zedekiah's generation NT concepts and keywords. BOM's text thus advertises itself as a hoax, doctrinally. You don't need to mess with irrelevant arguments like whether Joseph Smith really got some brass plates to translate in 1823 or so. You don't need to go chasing after allegedly damaging letters like the "White Salamander" hoax. Just look at the doctrine taught in the alleged holy book, and you have all the proof you'll ever need.
It's silly and disingenuous to evaluate God based on what people believe or do. Go only by the doctrines in the alleged holy book, lest you stab your nose to spite your faith, heh. It's not reliable to use ANY physicality indicators, since demons have been alive for millions of years; can, á la Mothman Prophecies, cause mass hallucination even in 1967 Protestant Middle America; can, therefore, obviously weave any past event or item into later text, then cause the past event/item to be 'discovered'. Principle: only use Truth Principles (Doctrine) already validated doctrinally, to decipher truth yet unknown. Everything else, can be faked/manipulated: that's why it's always been #1 rule in Biblical Hermeneutics since Adam to compare Scripture with Scripture, a rule which Bible itself repeatedly enjoins in many ways. Deduction, not induction. [line-upon-line verse is one such injunction; ear tests truth (Elihu's first speech) is another; "taste the Lord" is another; Levitical injunction against believing false prophets yet another; Lord's signature titles are another: Ani, Adonai (really, Sacred Tetragrammaton), plus "thus says the Lord" and similar legal signature-affadavit statements. There are many more, but I've no more time to type.] You won't be able to use this principle if you're ooohing-and-ahhhing over the supernatural. God Is Interesting, All Else Is Boring, remember? Really: what does it add to your life if there really were creatures in outer space? Wouldn't you still need to change your tires?
What's even MORE interesting, is this, in light of the Tischendorf&Tregelles discoveries: that same section of 2Nephi (and even before) begins the running claim, like in the Koran, that BIBLE was corrupted so what text exists, is adulterated. So don't look at it. Kinda strange, this claim, since 'Nephi' brought with him the Law and the Prophets. So, BOM, like Koran, becomes the ONLY Truth, the original having been 'lost' or 'adulterated'. Yeah, right. (This same old chestnut has been trotted out repeatedly, and is so overrated, it's not even funny.) So, lo! The most reliable MSS we have were discovered by Tischendorf (1844, Sinaiticus) and Tregelles (just before Civil War? Vaticanus), shortly after Joseph Smith's 'revelation'? You don't think Satan&Co. had to know in advance that such discoveries were going to be allowed by the Supreme Court of Heaven? Why else do you think the BOM makes a big stink out of 2Nephi 'prophecy' that it will later be discovered by another 'Joseph' and then sealed up again? Do you really think that is a 'coincidence'? [You can verify the MSS discovery dates yourself. I don't have the materials I need on Vaticanus to relay accurately -- they're on loan to someone else. Tregelles memorized an MSS Vatican had kept hidden, because they wouldn't let him take notes. So, Treg. later published his memorization: which after some years of struggle, forced the Vatican to publish photographs of that MSS about 1889.]
Worse: just as in the Koran, 2 Nephi has the exact same DELPHIC style. The prophecies are masterpieces of studied ambiguity: so worded as to tell them not to believe him, because he's rejected the Law of Moses, refuses to give God's Word to them and instead is talking from "mine own prophecy" (Chap25); even, to claim personal credit for the prophecy of the Babylonian captivity, which Isaiah and Jeremiah were given to foretell! Is there more hutzpah than this? In 25:20, TWO words are deliberate lies, compared to the Scripture verses they ape: "nations" and "can" -- thus negating, in Boolean manner, the entire verse.
2Nephi25:20 is a quintessential example of Satan&Co.'s use of Bible snippets in a Delphic, garish, insulting-to-God-and-man fashion. You'll probably need a BOM to see what follows, because it's not good to quote an extract out of context, no matter what or who the source material.
aka, can you think cunningly, like a Shyster Attorney, Or the Oracle of Delphi?
Wow. I guess it was a private joke, that verse: then again, they are also asserting God gave Moses the power to bring forth water by STRIKING the Rock. Instead of giving glory to God's Power: Herod was killed for not acknowledging God, in Acts, and many before him -- certainly back in the 500's BC -- were likewise toppled for it. Then again, Moses claimed it was his power at 2nd Meribah, striking it instead of SPEAKING to it as ordered: "shall WE bring you water out of this Rock!?!" (Numb20:10). Yeah, claim the power and strike Christ's Efficacy from "MUST" to "CAN"!?! Cute joke. Just as cute as the 1st Temptation, where Satan tempts Christ to use His Deity to speak Rock in order to Strike Christ. Just like, here in 2Nephi25:20. Trouble is, only we poor soppy humans get struck down. Poor Joseph Smith! Guy never had a day's peace! [Extra notes for the terminally-insane to understand the wordplay: the 1st Temptation in Matt4 was Satan's satire on 2nd Meribah (speak stones-to-bread to strike Rock of Israel, like Moses did, against orders, thus not being able to enter the Land) -- that 'floor' in a whole skyscraper of meanings ALSO gets a bow in 2Nephi25:20. That particular satire is VERY clever, for the FIRST time in the wilderness, Moses was supposed to strike the Rock (depicts Cross). Used rightly, too, in 2Nephi -- but in the passage CONTEXT, the SECOND striking is the topic! Nephi is STRIKING DOWN the Law (but 2Nephi5:10 says he obeyed, so maybe by Chap25 he dropped it); Law struck down in favor of his own prophecy, so STRIKING OUT on his own, "because of the spirit which is in me" which he ADMITS began when he LEFT Jerusalem (Chap25). So STRIKING DOWN Christ, who is the fulfillment of the Law, which Nephi even admits -- and then later, denies! Nephi is obviously drawing boundary lines to communicate what salvation means: I'm not accusing the verses of self-contradiction. Compare 2Nephi2:7,10, 9:17, 11:4 with 2Nephi2:5,13, 9:25-27 (deft summary of Paul's meaning in Romans and Galatians, etc., what the heck); BUT then, 2:26, 12:26 (but in the real Isa that's a Millenium passage, if I recall, so I'm not sure how Mormons read it), 25:23-27. Review 2nd Meribah and its import, plus Matt4 and Deut 8:3-4, then re-read 2Nephi. Too many meaning levels, to say more now.] UPSHOT: It's clear Nephi is claiming a new covenant with just his people, and claiming God gave it. The back-and-forth style of comparison writing is somewhat similar to the way the author of Hebrews explains the new covenant in CHRIST. However, the basis in Nephi FOR that new covenant is anti-God; God's covenant had to be fulfilled before a new group could get anything, and Hebrews (well, also most of NT) explains that Christ Alone Got All Covenants Because Only He Could Fulfill The Perfection Condition; so no one else got them (see Heb1). So either Nephi is a demon talking, or Christ is subject to a Law which God freed Nephi from -- that latter cannot be true, so Book of Mormon cannot be from God. [A change in priesthood means a change in covenant, as Hebrews painstakingly explains (Chaps5-10). Nephi&Co. could not be keeping the Mosaic Law without a son of Aaron, even a whole line, in the 'new' land. So either the M.L. is abrogated and replaced illegally, and God is a liar -- or Nephi is lying. God never lies, so it must be 'Nephi', and 'Nephi' must be a demon -- as illustrated in the flesh table, what human is so crafty and smart? Certainly not young Joseph Smith!] |
Moreover, 2Nephi, like Koran, constantly uses concatenation of important and easy-to-check New Testament verses and doctrines -- yet denies their existence. (Here, by pretending the book is written during Babylonian captivity.) Moreover, the WAY these NT verses and doctrines are concatenated demeans them. This is especially true with the Revelation allusions (e.g., white robe, girdle) -- both John AND Christ are treated like cattle: praised one second, put down the next. Like toys to please a master. Really rude. Just as rude as saying the Holy Spirit 'constrains', and as a result one is weakened? That's a popular refrain, too. Satan really has it in for the Holy Spirit: tell me, would Holy God MAKE you MURDER Laban, 'Nephi'? Would the Holy Spirit act like the engastrimuthos demon, imitating voices, LYING, DECEIVING? Do you think nothing of immediately DRESSING in the murdered man's clothes, and then claim the Spirit wanted that? Didn't Ananias die for the same, in Acts 5, wanting to make himself look like Barnabas? And why, if this prophecy is so valid, is it only 'Nephi' who keeps saying (esp. in the last chapter) that he thinks it valuable? What about the Lord's opinion of it? Ohhh, not mentioned! Another dead giveaway that God didn't provide the vision, in the first place -- no Divine Signature!
So: ask the question, yourself. Ask: is this item (i.e., verse) somehow insulting God's Nature, or Christ? Or, puts down one of His Bible believers? Save yourself the awesome grief of realizing you were psychically drugged by sound or feel or form! I wouldn't wish that realization even on Hitler or Stalyin, it's so awful.
Unlike the Koran, BOM was apparently 'delivered' to a demon-influenced believer (not unbeliever), given usage of the Lord's Name, & in connection with him. As in the Koran, Satan&Co. yell their authorship in part by the way they use God's Names. See, God has strict rules and penalties if His Name is misused, i.e., claiming He says something He doesn't say. So demons are very careful how they use His Name and in what context; they avoid 'signature' titles (so it's not really Him) when claiming He says fake doctrine; but use 'signature' titles when rephrasing/quoting what He really has said -- in Scripture! As a result, they SLANT/REVERSE the true, by mixture with false in other verses. Incredibly clever. A classic example is in 2Nephi 29: vv1-3 are false, 4 true doctrine (anachronistically said, but it's a truth), 5-8 false. Note how 'names' for Him change in the false verses or are nicely allusive to the only true-doctrine verse among the 8; notice also the fabulous double-entendre: "fools" in v.4 would be Nephi&Co.!
Awesome wordplay: blatant denial of Rev22:6-21; so anyone who believes in the Book of Mormon gets cursed per the Rev passage -- which, in double-entendre, is exactly what 2Nephi29:14's last sentence predicts! Clever: just like Oracle of Delphi. Humans just aren't this smart. Some apocrypha and pseudopigrapha also 'employed' believers, but BOM has a lot more 'class'. I really wish I had more time to write about it.
So: don't blame the Mormons, don't blame anyone: just learn from these errors. Just as if you were at West Point, studying military history. For, it's a life-or-death issue, what God says. We ought to treat it more seriously than we do. You know, when the Bible forecasts "shame" at the Evaluation Seat (Bema, usu. mistranslated Judgement), clearly "shame" is how WE voluntarily will feel -- not something God imposes. So clearly, the sooner we catch on and get out of our beguilements, the better! Which we do in part, by learning like they do at West Point -- by seeing how our brethren succeed, or fail in their own understandings. Because, there but for the Grace of God are we. And maybe 'tomorrow' we are the fallen, and their lameness is made whole! So if they/we fall, we/they can carry the baton for them/us, as well as ourselves/them. One Body, so we all are hurting, if any are hurting. And only the Balm of Bible Doctrine, heals. That's the Royal Family of God thing-to-do! No one else can have, and grow up in, this unique spiritual life, "with REFERENCE to all generations of this Age over the Ages!" [Eph3:21, corrected translation of Greek lexeme there and accusative-of-reference with the preposition eis. Exclamation, because there are no verbs, meaning Paul is shouting. If you look at the context, you'll know why!]
The term "gnosticism" is limited in your encyclopedias to a movement of the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. But its tenets go all the way back to earliest times. Kabbala, likewise, is limited by your encyclopedias to the Middle Ages. But you can ask almost any Cabalist, and he'll correctly tell you the ideas were there since Judaism was born. Even, older than that. For gnosticism is essentially an Eastern religious idea of communing, with lots of magic thrown in. Depending on how much asceticism you want, you can rarify the atmosphere to contemplation. Idea of separation between mind and body, to eventually return to the Light.
If you read Satan's other counterfeit, Bible-related, holy books and god-myths, you'll see much more of Satan&Co.'s desire for vengeance against God than the Bible will (out of kindness) reveal. The Greek dramas, in particular, show a great deal of their activity in mistreating the human race, and it's surprising how many Bible verses are alluded to (unknown to those Greeks who wrote the plays, surely): classic Satanic slapstick style, with all the "Signature" characteristics which were outlined in the "Satan's Script Tactics" section. Just like the way demons treated unbelievers in the Gospels and in Gen6.
It's also important to spend time on Greek dramas, since so much of Scripture uses Greek drama vocabulary, whether in LXX or NT; so the interpretation of many passages is materially different and clear if you know the Greek drama item being referenced by the Bible's usage. Also, maybe vice-versa. For, the development of Greece itself may be related to Israel's existence, given the many cultural commonalities to the Law, though I'd have to do a lot more research before I could be specific. See, there is evidence that some among the Tribes of Benjamin and Dan, after they entered The Land, split off (before Solomon's time), and sailed up north to Troy and Greece; maybe even founding Troy, Ionia (a 'branch' of which would be Sparta). Any such linkages would surely attract Satan&Co. to playing their games with any 'kin', however remote, and the obvious Scriptural allusions in the plays themselves would no longer be so surprising. Or else, maybe some political intermarriages occurred, for in Solomon's day there was a kinship with (what we call) Sparta and some other Greek city-states. (The split off's the only possible kernel of truth the we-are-the-real-Israelites jerks can hang a hat on -- ignoring, of course, that most of Israel did not split off, thank you very much. Naturally, any population of people has some within it who leave and wander, over time. But the whole "missing tribes" thingy is bupkis. Invented by Satan, of course.)
What's the essential plot of all these other writings and even the media versions? Starter-god is really the bad guy, and he either abandons his creation or acts in a criminally-capricious way toward them: hence the unending theme of shaking the fist at God is 'justified'. So, starter-god(s) gets killed/imprisoned by his kiddies, sometimes with the help of the 'mother' starter-god. Then, one or more of the kiddies took over the earth/universe, sometimes hiding the original crime of rebelling against his/their 'parents' from lower creation. Truly amazing: Satan&Co.'s fantasy. Not all the holy books start at the beginning of this fantasy. Some start only at the point when the kiddie(s) had already taken over as 'god(s)'. You kinda have to read them all to tell which holy books start later, as it were, in Satan's fantasy. In fact, all these stories, wherever in the world, transmit the same 'bottom-line': the 'god(s)' will always ooze caprice; basically does whatever he likes with lower creation, who are always -- ahem -- 'encouraged' to placate him(them). Truly bitter satire of the highest wit. Truly and OBVIOUSLY makes fun of any humans who believe in it. Devastating stuff.
So too, with gnosticism, which is too much like Kabbala to be unrelated. So if you really enjoy spotting very dense wordplay & satire on the Bible's original languages, start with the gnostic writings: they are by far the funniest, cleverest, most deft demonic documents extant. (Frankly, everything esoteric of any epoch in history is either summed up in gnosticism, or is eclecticized BY gnosticism. Gnosticism is still very much alive and flourishing today, in a dizzying array of forms, so it's extremely relevant, albeit annoying, to study.)
Then cycle through the rest of the 'holy book' competition. It's particularly interesting to see how Satan&Co. vary their Slapstick Signature. For example, one of the better counterfeit Gospels is the so-called "Gospel of Nicodemus". However -- of course -- the miracles recounted which are not in THE Gospels, are so out-of-kilter with the tenor of Christ's miracles which are in the Gospels, you know something's wrong. Then, when you think over the alleged miracle for more than two seconds, you notice hey, God would be slapstic silly if He did a miracle like this! Which, of course, He's not: there IS no miracle like it anywhere in Bible.
It would be hilarious, if not so tragic, to realize that many of these obviously bogus stories were actually believed upon by the so-called Church Fathers. Many more were rejected, too, but hey: why would Jerome (or Eusebius, I forget) buy the idea that "James the Just" went without bathing and food, living IN the Temple? Bathing was one of the most sacred rituals of the Jews. Is that why Jerome used the name "Hieronymus" to attest to such a libelous story about the Lord's half-brother? I mean, that story is as slapstick silly as the "Christ's Descent into Hell" subdivision in the 'gospel of Nicodemus'! A whole lot of believers during the second and third century must have been a sick bunch of folks, to find popular those smiling-pots-of-venom, the Infancy Gospels. It's enough to make you mourn man's insane negative volition, forever. How is it that a person who will be perfectly logical about his day, suddenly finds it reasonable, some gnostic or other holy book story? The difference between the way the Real Bible is written and all its competitors, is like the difference between a good math textbook, and a child learning to write numbers. Incredible.
Again, the reason to engage in this exercise is to see for yourself the satanic style of derision. Because, this same style is played upon man every day in every way, whether you are in a conversation, watching television, hearing what politicians do, or going to the supermarket. For, until you know what a "Corvette" looks like, you can't spot one everywhere you go. Finally, go through the Greek and Roman pantheons, myths, plays; again note how the plotlines SATIRIZE real Bible stories. You should notice that the clever satire is way beyond what a mere human could dream up. Non-Greco-Roman god myths differ only in name and cleverness.
"Epignosis" is a Greek noun Paul uses in wordplay: its cognate verb is "epiginoskw". When you carefully read the OT uses of those words and how Paul then plays on those uses, you see that both words only denote rapport with God due to Knowing Him; which comes from knowing His Thinking, which is written out for us as Scripture, e.g., 1Cor2:16, Heb4:12, all of 1Cor13; which was a longstanding promise in the OT, e.g., in Jer31:31-34. [Sample OT verses are Proverbs 2:5, Hos5:6, 6:6, Isa5:13. Since English typically screws up by translating different "knowledge" verbs all with "knowledge", you cannot distinguish what Bible is saying. This travesty is common with many other keywords in Bible. So you screw up your interpretation of the verse(s) in question.] So the "epignosis" is coined by combining the preposition "epi" (upon, on top of), which has a root connotation of true-foundation-for-true-construction, with KNOWLEDGE (gnosis, verb=ginoskw). It's a tweak word Paul likes to use, poking at gnosticism (a philosophical religion which really dates back to maybe Cain).
So an interesting example of how Satan&Co. satirize "epignosis", if you strip out the Hollywoody sensationalism, is in the History Channel's 'documentary' on Stigmata, or in the movie "Stigmata". Please understand: I'm not saying the people who made these are bad, or 'involved'. Not at all: the 'stigmata' topic merely illustrates satanic strategy and tactics. Everyone in this world gets used by Satan&Co. It's a major doctrine in the Bible. Here, the 'usage' is, as always, to promote something false.. using slivers of truth to do so. For, A thinking person would never conclude that alleged 'marks of Christ' suddenly showing up in a body would actually be from God, but rather from demonism. God is no sadist. But oh! What has been the repeated lie? Oh, St. Francis of Assisi and x number of other people are holy because they get these marks!! See how God is maligned, for crying out loud? The movie's also an unintentional showcase promoting that scurrilous libel, the so-called "Gospel of St. Thomas". You might want to read it, and then watch the movie, before you read the rest of this table: its comments won't make much sense, else. [Nerd note: I'm not condemning the movie. Like anything and everything else in life, it will be used by Satan&Co. to sell something: humans are quite clearly oblivious to being so used. So, you play intelligence officer, reading between the lines, to determine the sales pitch.] If you know the doctrine of demon possession, you'll find the movie demonstrates a very cunning satire which of course those associated with the movie didn't recognize: ah, a holy man destructively possesses an atheist? Yeah, the real God would authorize such a thing? Yeah, the Real God is so insecure, He 'needs' to use blood-and-guts, not to mention dangerous visions of being on a Cross, to promote some hidden, genuine, truth? Gimme a break! Of course, the word "truth" in Greek is "aletheia", and literally means, "the unhidden". So any 'hidden' truth is an oxymoron. Heh: self-canceling, so truth becomes LIE, get it? Of course, this holy man possesses an atheist in order to preserve the Gospel of St. Thomas, which the RCC suppresses! Never mind that only demons possess anyone. Never mind that any real stigmata only occur as a result of demon possession, since 'stigmata' deride the Cross. [In Matt4, Satan's below-radar taunt claims the Cross is needless suffering; that Christ refuses good deeds/miracles because God is sadistic. So all satanic 'miracles' display a derisive quality, if you look closely at their characteristics. Note how the Lord speaks of even REAL miracles in a negative way: "an evil generation seeks a sign", etc. 1Cor13 is even more dramatic, in its Attic Greek: Paul as the hypothetical greatest person in history, yet is nothing (outhen in Attic Drama Greek="NOTHING!") without Love.] Never mind that All Scripture is the Thinking of Christ (the transmission of which is proved to the reader via Content Quality, being written by the human NT authors) -- it matters more to allege Christ wrote a 'gospel' in Aramaic! LOL.
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Testing fake Bible books can be instructive. EnochTest.htm is one such test, if you're interested in the Book of Enoch. You always look for malignings of God or Bible Hero, for blatant proofs that a book is not from God. They won't be hard to find. All fake Bible books make good comedy. That's their intent!
If you're interested in the Grail Myth version of gnosticism, click on the "Grail" link in DDNA.htm, and have a gay ol' time.
Formerly, I had listed another example in this section: from the HBO series, "Carnivale". It was yet another rehashed gnostic story. I cut it out, since the series is over. If you want that text, which analyzes some of the imagery (again, the humans making the series were clueless), just email me. However, the fake Bible books offer more goldmine-evidence, since in them, you can usually prove direct demon authorship. Not all fake Bible books are witty enough to qualify as demonic: the best two demonic books I can find are Koran and Book of Mormon: so they are classed at pagetop, as separate Tactical Examples.
Here are some of my hundreds of videos on Bible mistranslation, teaching, reading, Lie Detection. You can just Google on 'brainout' and 'Bible Mistranslation' to find a full list in both Youtube and vimeo. See also my "b-out False Doctrine" Youtube playlist.
Videos on the satanic misreading of Genesis are best viewed in vimeo: click here.
Alternatively, for the Youtube (smaller) set you can view off-Youtube, click here.
Until Episode 8, you'll see how egregiously we Christians misread Genesis. Beginning in Episode 8, you'll see the astonishing meaning of those Genesis 5 begats, and will know why Satan likes it just fine if we snooze over them rather than wake up to our huge impact on earth, just by learniing and living on Bible. :)
Every one of my websites contains many specific examples of satanic involvement in Bible translation and teaching. By contrast, the overall GAME they play and how they fool us, is covered here.
Satan well knows we aren't curious about God, but rather only about His Goodies. Satan depended on our goodies-orientation, when he tempted Adam. Satan tempted Adam, by going after the WOMAN. See, essentially, Isha's fall meant that Adam would lose her, if he didn't take that fruit from her hand. It was an situational ultimatum: God, or goodies. Adam took the goodies, and he did it in the name of good. Hence was born the replacement of God with people in the First Commandment, such that 'fitting-in' with people is more important than fitting in with God. So much so, the average Christian will tell you that you serve God by serving people. And, in so saying, never even notices that Adam's fall rationalization is being replayed, right before your eyes.
So Satan's task is but to repeat what succeeded in the Garden. That, he's done very well. Matt4 is updated version of the Garden Temptation, for Christ and for Church. Watch: Adam had to choose between God and the woman, and it was no contest. Church had to choose between the Word of God and people, and it was no contest. [Note to self: Maybe that's another reason why my pastor keeps repeating that 1John keeps drawing parallels back to the Garden, with marital intimacy and rulership pointers? Think over.] Church was offered the Third Temptation beginning about 100AD, and was warned about it in Rev13-17; it took the forbidden fruit, political power. Aha.
So, the to-people slanting of Scripture translation and interpretation, was inevitable: Judaism had long done that, so of course the early Christians followed suit. Even more so, after the Church's 'fall' into politicization. "Works" are but figleaf loincovers; after all, that's why Adam made the loincovers in the first place, to ATONE. [Hebrew word for atonement is really, "to cover", "kopher" or "kepher" or most commonly, "kippur": from which we get Yom Kippur, Day of Atonement. So this is a fabulously educational pun in the Bible, to tell us about Adam's figleaves thingy.] So, we genetically inherit that drive, "flesh", "old man", the sin nature, and baby we can't make enough figleaves to fool ourselves that we PAID something. So of course, from the "Church Fathers" through the Puritans (though surely many among them worked very hard and believed much), one finds that figleaves signature. Which, when applied to Scripture translation and interpretation, amounts to a very childish, if not insane, doctrinal apprehension of the real spiritual life. So, to this day, that babyish Constantinian-Reformation view has dominated Christian interpretation of Scripture: as a consequence, God101 is but barely perceived and taught. Despite having Canon In Writing for about 2000 years!
So, given the spectacular-but-quite-understandable failure of Church to historically pass Matt4 testing, it's pretty easy to understand how the grand champions of Satan's DIOS sleight-of-hand strategy and micro tactics, are Bible translations. So, Bible translations will most commonly and deftly display satanic sleight-of-truth. If you have Christopher deHamel's The Book, you'll find the scenario below should track to the order of his just-the-facts history of how the Bible came to be in its present form; I'm typing from memory, though (my copy of The Book is currently lent out). I highly recommend www.bautz.de, which is in German, for any further research (it was the only place where I could find a wealth of relevant data on Samuel Tregelles and the extraordinary Biblical advances of the mid 1800's). Click here for a great synopsis of the mid-1800's discoveries, half in German, half English (if you studied Latin even briefly, the German won't be too hard to grasp).
After reviewing the above sources and other raw-data items, it became obvious that Satan&Co. have been fervently engaged in a kidnap-the-Bible scheme. Scripture itself talks about this a lot, viz., in the Greek of 1Tim2:26-3:7; the parable about the birds snatching up seed (believers in the Word) also includes the idea of SEPARATING Word from the believer. Perhaps more about the DERISIVENESS of Satan&Co.'s tactical strategy of kidnapping the Word should be said, before covering the historical sweep of the kidnapping, itself.
However, like with anything else in life, what's good about a thing is also and exactly what's bad about it. With positive volition, there's a danger in becoming too absorbed, overwhelmed, shocked (by pleasure, here) at knowing the truth, etc. Overexposure, not underexposure, is a genuine hazard. So, the need to dig offsets these potential hazards. For us, we have to dig in an ancient foreign language to even be sure of the basics. For those whose native tongue at the time was the same as the writer's, the 'digging' was still an effort, because the wordplay in Scripture is so dense and so multilayered, you could walk from Jerusalem to Ephesus still playing with but one verse. [Talmud is essentially a lot of playing with Scripture's meaning.] Note that function: volition is deciding at each second to play FURTHER. Consent is a type of buffer, because consent is a type of acceptance. It's easier to be hit with something if you are already inclined to accept the blow. Just as, Christ accepted the blows of our sins on the Cross, so also in the lesser 'series of blows' that repeated learning of Bible truth constitutes, Acceptance Tempers The Shock.
Also, in all events, a huge amount of time gets spent in learning, which spending is also an series of repeated CONSENTS; which time, when the fullness of the answer finally 'hits' you, braces you for the shock. See, it's one thing to hear and even believe a repeated statement. It's quite another thing when the lightbulb goes on and you are confronted with the item really really really being TRUE. Whether you very much like the Truth, or very much don't. At that moment, the Truth is ROOTING in you, and it sprouts out rapidly from that moment forward. For better, or for worse.
In sum, there are many protection mechanisms employed in the writing, not just this one about digging -- but, you get the idea: the protection mechanisms buffer volition from being unduly influenced by the gigantic Power of God's Truth. For, even though it IS the Truth, to coerce volition even a little bit, is anathema to Divine Sovereignty. I guess you could say, God is the Ultimate Practitioner of the so-called 'Golden Rule'.
Satan satirizes this Golden Rule, as follows: oh, well gotta PROTECT the human race from this too-high truth! Oh, well since PLAYING is what the believer is supposed to do with Scripture, let's play! Slice it, dice it, process it, dilute it, reverse it, mash it -- process the truth to a 'safer' level of consumption! Better still, COVER UP this truth, secrete away this all-too-powerful weapon, Christ's Thinking (OT, Deity, NT, Humanity). Then the human race can 'safely' get my DIOS. So -- and you can set your watch by it in history -- everything Satan does is a version of kidnapping Scripture. He's positively rabid about it; one of the big surprises of research for this webpage, was the discovery of the satanic signature. It shows up everywhere, like graffiti: as if he couldn't stand for anything remotely resembling God to be 'unmarked'. So, from the outright sequestration attempts, which the flesh table below will highlight, to 'processed' translation and interpretation, which the text below the table will examine in some detail, Satan&Co. make their yellow (snow) journalism bylines. To keep us all safely in cosmos diabolicus, of course.
Pretend you're Satan's chief lieutenant. The absolutely last thing you wanna do is incur the anger of your boss. So you, who really have to run the day-to-day (he has to sit around and think all the time), YOU have to do all the birdogging. So YOU get the blame when things go wrong. Here's your situation, post-Cross: you must prevent believer growth to Pleroma, CONFISCATE SCRIPTURE, and kill as many Jews as possible (preferably by herding them). While the NT canon was being created between 30AD and 96AD, you worked real hard at creating many fake 'inspired' texts, so people would be confused which ones GOD inspired, and which ones YOU did; you fought hard to get everyone all goofy over the temporary spiritual gifts which God used to substitute-teach the stuff being gradually codified into a written NT. When the Canon was, despite ALL your best efforts, nonetheless completed circa 96AD, you fought long and hard to get it destroyed; failing that, you sought to make Christianity 'go political', just as Revelation 17 predicted, by developing and hallowing, the so-called 'Church Fathers': so you could at least control WHO got the Scripture. And what a triumph that was: by Commodus, the harlot was named Christian and was nicely religified with bishops, hermits, and all manner of legalism. Pharisees again, hah! Ahh, breathing space. Now you've promoted Apostate Christianity; and thus, offset those few who grew to Pleroma; so you can gerrymander to your own anti-God goals, the Pleroma Blessings God awarded to all humanity, from those FEW. After all, it was bad enough every OT hero ended up giving the entire planet an extra 490 years to live from Noah forward; gotta HIDE the Bible which shows that, lest folks realize the Session's Legacy to Church, exponentially increased the 490's blessing to.. infinity! So you sought and achieved a greatly increased number of apostate believers, so God can't justly pronounce the number of Pleroma 'balances' to complete Church, and thus call up the Rapture. Whew, you did buy more distance from the Rapture date: that first century's Pleroma increase was a b*tch! Then again, the 2nd through 4th centuries' apostacy was quite gratifying: even the Church fathers were sucked in. That's why they were promoted to posterity as "Fathers", of course. Heh. And how amazing, that when people for centuries afterwards read their writings, they don't notice how goofy those people were, how anti-Bible their interpretations, their crusades! So, the attempt to create APOSTATE VIEWING OF SCRIPTURE, via politicizing Christianity, finally worked: by Commodus' ascension, Christianity had largely FORGOTTEN how to read the Greek texts well, and had striated along competing denominational lines, replete with ecclesiastical bureaucracy. Even so, you've not been able to get Scripture totally destroyed. But you managed to centralize it into an institution which needed power over people; so you could hide the Bible and instead teach whatever suited your purpose. Better still, you made it so difficult to get any glimpse of Scripture, those positive to it MUST become priests or nuns -- thus you gather them into easy-to-'manage' locations. (Like a Hitler did with the Jews.) Heh. Then, split the Church so that the Greek texts are hoarded by the East, and thus hard-to-get for the West, which has more positive volition among the masses! And, with time, even the hoarder can't read the ol' Greek anymore! Divide and conquer, baby! But Drat! That danged Jerome, he brought Scripture together and translated it into Modern Latin! How did he do that, since he was one of the wackiest ascetics ever, even helping to promote that silly story one of my demons 'coached' yet another Eusebius on, about the death of James! What if some believers finally understood the BIBLE, and grew UP spiritually? What to do? Oh, just discredit him -- he's 'new', and the "Bible" is old -- parade the OLD like a holy relic, a magic thing, ohhhmmmmm, that people touch, but never actually learn. Bye, Jeromey baby: it will be 400 years before your translation ever sees the light of day. Ok, let's kill the Christians now: try to get Byzantium and Rome to destroy each other by 586AD, Boss has a yen for that number. Drat! Over 10 years late! Ok, next goal date is 99+586 years; go prepare some schlemiel as a prophet to the Arabs, make him like John the Baptist, but tell them he's their substitute for Jesus and Isaac -- superior to, of course. You found one? Are you SURE? Whasshisname? Moh-what? Well, did he bite? Does he obey, is he stable? Ok, just keep feeding him, make sure it sounds like Bible. Yes, support them: but make it look difficult, so they will build into a faithful cadre. Moslems? That's what they call themselves? HAH! Yeah, build their temple over the Rock once you invade Jerusalem, clock's ticking! I wanted to get this done by 586AD, but.. heh, now we just tack on Abram's age at circumcision, how rich...Oh, and have the Moslems a) confiscate Scripture, and b) validate continued POLITICAL orientation to RELIGION! Drat! That Charles Martel! Ok, beat the drum on unity, again, use Charlesmagne to reassert control over who can GET that translation! Ahhhh, we need RELICS! Make Bibles BIGGER, gaudier, Stones too precious and hard to lift, so no one dare read them, ha! But Drat! Charlesmagne wants to make the script a bit more readable! What to do? Ahhhh. Shift to miniscule, so to 'obey' Jerome's complaint about uncials, too; but in the name of beauty and deference to the past, make the script only mildly better, so verses still must be chanted slowly; so the hearer won't understand what the heck he hears, but will 'feel holy'! Drat! Those danged Anglo-Saxons and Danes, even some Germans -- they translated some portions! Drat! Codex Amiatinus! Hide it, get them! Ahhhh. Have only the Pope say who can translate the Bible, and make sure no one outside a few bored priests has a full copy. DRAT! People want smaller Bibles? Ok, load them up with commentary, and keep the script unreadable! Drat! People read them anyway? Drat! They just want the Bible itself, to see it for themselves????? No more 'commentary' to childishly-narrow how they 'see' the words? Bring on the Crusades, tap their fervor for God, so people will forget to read, and instead glory in conquest! DRAT! That Parisian method of chapter and verse, to make Scripture easier to study! Ok, make better picture books of the bible to palliate curiosity and slant it to politics; keep stressing the Psalter and jazz it up more! Drat! Those Franciscan friars! Well, at least the Dominicans can stamp out the heresy, but those stupid Franciscans, they're substantiating everything, teaching the people the chapter and verses, adding them together! DRAT! That dratted, horrible, Gutenberg! Now anyone can print a Bible! Double-Drat! The Reformation comes along and now Scripture is widely translated into the vernacular. DRAT! Wait, let's make war between the Catholics and the Protestants. Make them all kill each other off. DRAT! They aren't bloodthirsty enough! DRAT! Bibles smaller, easy to carry, even in the palm of the hand! Ok, make even smaller bibles a fad, make the type so small you need a magnifying glass you can easily lose! But what to do about those dang translations? Ahhhh: sleight the translation, so folks won't be really SURE what the meaning is, ha. Oh, and make everyone who does a translation either suffer a lot, or feel so unsure of his translation he keeps re-writing revisions, so people begin to doubt his accuracy. Make lots of translations which differ, make chaos so people will long for the old, stable, "Church"! Yeah, a stable of dumb beasts! Ahhhh. DRAT! Original-language manuscripts keep on turning up, be they found in crocodiles, or even sometimes as 'logs' for the fireplace -- almost in the fire, but Count Tischendorf happened to discover the parchments-used-to-light-fires were Scripture, and later found a monk who had secreted a whole manuscript in his cell! DRATDRATDRAT! Ho, what's this???? Who fell asleep at the switch among my minions? Two flubs within a few decades??? That danged Tregelles, he memorized Scripture while peeking at Codex Vaticanus, thus forcing the Vatican to finally publish it! TRIPLE-DRAT!!! Now There Are Three Original-Language Big Manuscripts Everyone Can Check! Masoretic Text errors are now exposed! Roll out Joseph Smith's group, make 'em grow! Alternative, obviously-lying 'Bible', HAHAHAHAHAHAH! Start a civil war to deflect attention from Bible, and instead onto just the SOUND of Bible! NOW NOW NOW! DRATTTTTTT@@$$!!%%!!! Paul's teaching about the 'local church' breaks out, People Learn Scripture Properly???? Well, only a little bit, but can't have that, must PROMOTE denominations and state churches! Drat again! Still people are actually studying the original languages??? It's those cursed independent-churches; that danged Tischendorf, Tregelles work is distributed! Ok, calm down, now: gotta make and enforce translation rules which chop out the clarity! Use the same stupid old-is-more-venerable 'reasoning'! So everyone will be afraid to stick his neck out and differ from some 'old' pillar-of-the-Church whose interpretation was juvenile! Else, how can one gain control over the masses, how can one promote works and me-be-god brain-urge? Else, how else can one create that 'holy' sense-of-self which comes from thinking one 'contributed to' (or can lose) salvation? Oh, gotta make more political and war distractions! Hmmm. See that guy Karl Marx? Hmmm. Help that Lenin over there; people in Russia are sufficiently jealous, now, to do some real damage, later on. Let's get Germany all riled up, too, after entangling everyone in 'alliances'. Wonderful: war is such a nice distraction, yet people can feel holy. Bleed themselves to death. Aha, Versailles: that Hitler sure looks useful... Yeah, that's right, continue to promote this Communism thing, keep folks' attention occupied and more rooted in MY realm. That way -- drat -- when in 1950's that truly old and better cache of Greek grammar rules is discovered, [Christopher de Hamel didn't mention this in his book], the previous, FAULTY grammar rules for translation will also be old, so still venerable, preferred. Heh. DRAT DRAT DRAT the Dispensationalists actually LEARN from the newly-discovered, more accurate, cache of Greek Grammar Rules, so Better Prove From The Original Languages, God's Timing! Screw them up, divide them into dippy interpretations, sick the Calvinists ON them, now! Roll out the tongues crowd, to blunt any accurate Bible teaching! DRAT DRAT DRAT! Discredit those few pastor-teachers who are CORRECTLY teaching from the original languages; make them look like anti-communist hotheads! NOW NOW NOW! Whew, that was close. Now we got the independents back under our roof. The prolife -- what a crock! -- thingy is nicely blocking everyone, which the Most High kindly allowed, since they stopped reading their original language texts by the 1950's -- courtesy of us, of course! Yes! So now those straggler teachers who still teach from those texts -- boy, we can concentrate our efforts now... |
See, most of the time, translations can't be right, anyway, because the original languages of Scripture are way too rich in nuance. So care in translation is really important. In what follows, you'll see a lot of seemingly-unkind remarks against translators and teachers. Again, remember that the point is to see how Satan blinds, not to point the finger. Ergo, I've got to give you examples you can verify for yourself, and also show why they are so stupid: so it must be Satan & Co.'s blinding action exploiting our own ignorance, our own negative volitions.
Satan exploits the innate translation/teaching problem of Scripture's original-language texts:
Ergo Scripture's own Truth, its 'obviousness', remains right before-your-eyes, yet you can't see it. Classic example here is of the definition "one". It's scary, how successfully Satan's satire works. With any piece of literature, with any language, scholars in it laud the author's use of words: underlying patterns-of-comparison; variety of qualitative/quantitative allusions; parallelisms, puns, paronomasias, other word-play, satire, sarcasm, wit, alliteration, simile, metaphors; syncopation (tone), musicality, etc. Due to such uses of the language structure, classics by authors like Homer are much praised; so also Shakespeare. So also James Joyce' Ulysses. Dostoyevsky. Molière. Rabelais. Swift. Gilbert&Sullivan. Orwell. Even, "Mad Magazine". Academic people spend their entire lives combing these writings; they spend whole books expatiating all the rich literary meaning levels. Of course, the same is done for film classics, like Hitchcock's "Psycho", "Citizen Kane", "Gone with the Wind". In sum, people know very well to analyze any literary medium as being deliberately multilevel, punny. People know very well that quantitative words like "one" are equally used to denote qualitative concepts, like -- duh! -- 'unity'. Takes More Than One Person, to be 'united'. Duh.
So, what happens when the same scholars look at the bible, which even unbelievers acknowledge is one of the great literary works of all time? Everyone goes BLIND. Never mind that everyone knows "Testament" means the Bible should be analyzed the way a lawyer would read a legal document (legal documents are always self-defining). Never mind that poetry and narratives are used, so any scholar should know to apply linguistic literary analysis to the text. Oh no. Despite all that erudition: suddenly, "one" ONLY has a quantitative meaning? 'Despite clear and frequent usage of "one" as qualitative, in every known language ever spoken/written? 'Including, all over the place in the very Bible people claim to "see"? Look! "And the two shall become one flesh" -- hello? Any brains out there working? "That they may be one, even as We are One" -- hello? Anyone awake?????? Hebrew "echad", and Greek "heis" both are used to mean "united", "unique", "first", as well as "one" -- when used qualitatively. Even back when Scripture was written, and still true today. Hello???? Is anyone thinking?????
Of course not -- it's the Bible, stupid. Yeah, so we truly get stupid when we read it. 'Oh no, we can't treat the Bible as literature. Oh no, it's only HOLY to interpret Scripture as dry, shallow! Oh no, we can't admit God might actually be 'fun' to know! Must have a meaning-sucked-out-translation! Oh no, God should be boring, to be Majestic! Oh no, Bible should glaze eyes over, lest anyone richly understand it! Clothe its sexual wit with euphemism! Admit NO qualitative, metaphorical, humorous uses of concrete words, like "one"! In God's Holy Word? Perish the thought! Nay, banish idiomatic translation! Spurn punning structures, like Paul's use of the sex-act verb, Greek [pros]kollaw, command to 'have sex with' Christ, in (of all places) 1Cor6:16-17! Oh No!! Change it to "join" or "unite" or "cleave"! Cover the eye!' Yet it's 'okay' to remember the qualitative uses of "one" in Homer???? Or in other Hebrew writings???? Even in Hebrew today, "the United Nations" uses the Hebrew "one" (echad) for "United"! Just think of the centuries of stupid councils, persecutions, wars -- over the definition "one" in the Bible! Unbelievable. No -- believable, alright. Satan wins them over. (God doesn't need defending, so Satan reverses that fact, of course.)
Oh, and let us not forget that -- um, hello? Aren't there 'collective nouns' in every language, especially in ancient languages? 'Man', for example, can be used collectively to denote all mankind, so takes a SINGULAR verb -- but also can be used to denote 'one' person, and in that situation also takes a singular verb. Then there's the term "men", which takes a PLURAL verb. Hello???? "God" isn't a collective noun? When THREE Persons are depicted clearly in OT and NT???? So "God is" can't be collective? So "gods are" can't be used like the term 'men', to denote a subgroup, even a self-styled group? Hello??? Are scholars thinking? Of course not. So, little wonder they can't 'see' Three Persons in the OT. They can't see, period: those degrees on the wall don't confer upon them the spiritual competence they need to overcome Satan's blinding propaganda -- only the Holy Spirit can confer it. This is not to condemn academic learning, but rather to show how Satan can reverse its value. To anyone. To experts. To you and to me. We are all vulnerable. Academic training doesn't protect one from error, unfortunately. 'Wish it did.
Thus Satan manages the "salami-tactic" of getting most translated words to be a much-more-'off' than they would otherwise be. Therefore the resultant translation is confusing, dry, unintelligible, misleading: yet when one is confronted with, say, the fact that in a verse, the word "from" ought to be instead translated "out-from", the reader is inclined to think, "What's the big deal?" -- the difference seems too trifling. Yeah, like a germ. So the translation is oh-so-invisibly infected.
Here's another example: Philippians 2:7's 'emptied' (RSV), in English, stresses the RESULT -- a void, a subtraction. Never mind that the Greek "kenoo", which 'emptied' alleges to translate, instead means to "take off/lay aside", stressing the action of ADDITION-and-SUBSTITUTION (temporarily disusing something in favor of something else). But oh! Got to use one English word, however senseless it renders the translation! But oh! 'kenoo' connotes taking off clothing (which, of course, means one still has the clothes, didn't lose them, duh)! Not politically correct! Can't say He became NAKED!!! oh, no! Never mind that Heb10:5 and Isa7 thus tie in here and stress the Grace of HIS (ahem, naked) BIRTH! Oh, sex! Oh, nakedness! Gotta cover it up -- use 'emptied'!
Need I say more? The oversimplified English "for" REVERSES the meaning of the Greek prepositions. For your homework assignment, work out, from the examples above, and the data here, how Satan deftly accomplishes that neat trick. :)
Yet another example: "sozo", translated by the one-word-English rule as "to save", really has several meanings in the Greek, just as it does in the English. One can be saved for Heaven, save money, save time, be delivered from trouble, be spared/saved a hassle, etc. So, depending on context, "to deliver" might be the better way to translate. Or, "save", still, but..the to-Heaven version isn't in view. Maybe you're being "saved" in some more earthly way, heh, as a RESULT of being saved-for-Heaven, so "saved" is a play-on-words to hearken back to the Savior. After all, being saved for Heaven should result in various "saves" down here! (Bible is really keen on such wordplay, especially with "sozo".)
Here, the satanically-inspired, political correctness rule (e.g., getting the Calvinists and Catholics to agree on the 1611 KJV translation) shows its vainglorious head: if "to save" is the ONLY allowed English rendering, then Catholics (and others) can claim you can lose your salvation, but those knowing it's Faith-alone-in-Christ-alone can still say that, too. So, everyone's happy. Never mind that the Bible's translation got corrupted. Man is more important than a book, by God! Better still, the layman remains dependent on the 'experts' -- despite the fact that the original Scripture was circulated by the apostles to laymen, so it's not God's Will that only the 'experts' have the Bible.
Neat trick, huh? You work out how Satan plays the four characteristics on "sozo": obviousness/derision, misemphasis/imbalance, noise/obfuscation, reversal/substitution. Yep, it's another homework assignment, and a richly rewarding one -- go through every verse with the words "save", "spare" or "deliver" (and cognates, like "salvation", "deliverance") in it. Play with what-if-i-reinterpret-save-in-that-verse. See what you get. You can deduce the four satanic characteristics pretty easily, once you do this.
Second analogy: if you shop at a grocery store where every item you buy -- for the same price -- seems only a 'little bit' lower in quality or quantity, you'll still buy it. Yet the total difference in your true cost will be very large, for all those eentsy-teentsy shortages for the same price add up to a lot less or a lot lower-value purchase. It's been a common trick in the candy-bar business for years. So, if one's holy book verses are each a little shaved-off in meaning, they add up to a very different 'bible' than the real thing. So the total difference in the bill (cost to mankind!) will be very large. So of course one wants to dispute! And oh, how many miles of blood have thus flowed...
Furthermore, Satan&Co. have a good time getting believers to narrowly and timidly look at Truth, which is another reason why so many lives have been tragically lost in so many 'holy' wars. It's so easy to accept black/white ideas, after all. Helps the ego feel better about one's many weaknesses. See, it's easy to shave the truth when the mind wants a black/white, childish view of life. Simplicity is man's urge, to counter the 'work' punishment. We all want things 'easy'. So, Satan makes it easy on us -- he shaves Bible words, concepts, ideals, ideas into black/whites: stereotypes, soundbytes. Which, since we are childlike in our desire for oversimplicity, we need to "defend". My family, right or wrong. My team, right or wrong. My people, right or wrong. My country, right or wrong. My faith, right or wrong. Black/white distorted-truths get 'married' to loyalties, to morality -- producing a deadly progeny, prejudice: the self-absorbed crown of the me-be-god, depraved brain reflex.
So: Just as they trained you at the CIA to 'read-between-the-lines' in Soviet newspapers, so also a human can easily read the true meanings in these satanic, commonly-held, goofy religious tenets, to wit:
Naturally, every one of these claims is allegedly backed up by some Scripture verse. Which, of course, is generally a translation of Scripture, not the real thing. Which, of course, is taken out of context (like, "faith without works is dead" is bandied about as if James 1:1-2:18a did not exist). Which, of course, also ignores common sense whenever convenient, like the Monty Python sketch about the dead parrot: i.e., a seed can produce "fruit"; or, head-vs.heart-belief; or, God would be fair to condemn men who have no free will. Of course, a clever attorney can make the senseless sound sensible, to slant testimony. SSSSS: It's awesome. Polly wanna cracker? Polly? Nailed-to-the-perch-Polly? Purchased from a petstore that way?
Of course, Satan's blatantly deriding mankind TO mankind at the very same time, that man would believe in such nonsense. He's so bold, he even makes clear this nonsense to unbelievers, who constantly tell 'devout' Christians why such 'doctrines' don't make any sense. What do the Christians then do? Oh, they feel holy! Martyred, falsely accused! So they cling even more strongly to these idiotic falsehoods!
Satan gets an even bigger 'bang for the buck' accusing such believers before the Supreme Court of Heaven: there, our "accuser" denounces us all for any infraction, and ESPECIALLY for believing these lies. Constantly. See, since the Son paid for all sins, denouncing us for sin gets the rejoinder, "But My Son paid for that sin" -- so Satan needs a more-effective accusation. 'Like our rebellion, via belief-in-a-lie. It's vital that he do so, as well as just-plain-fun: he gets us executed, called-home-to-Heaven in shame, that way (1Jn5:16). So, the "salt of the earth" can be wiped off the planet. That's his dream goal. (He gets it, too: at the Rapture, as Part IV explained.)
Now, hear this: Satan&Co. don't want God to 'make sense'. For, if God makes sense, then Satan&Co. are wrong. They can't take that kind of confrontation with reality. So, they have to sell the idea that "God is Inscrutable, therefore He should not 'make sense'" as a VIRTUE. Check out any ideas you have of God which don't make sense to you; check out any ideas which you 'buy' but others say don't make sense to them. Rethink them all, as often as you can. For the sake of your own mental health. For, the punishment for persistently believing a falsehood is Deut28:28: "and I will strike them with madness..." [Modern Yiddish "meshugge" comes from the Hebrew "shigaon", translated "madness" in that verse.]
So: how to cut through Satan&Co.'s flak? Really, by constantly growing up using 1Jn's Script: Part I. Parts III-IV explain the how's in more detail.
Over the years, we each come up with techniques we find effective, as a result of learning 'God's Script'. Here are some of my favorites.
How I quickly read-between-his-lies: first, use 1Jn1:9! Then, remember: what God says is 'little', Satan makes 'big', what's big is made little; what's true is hidden, what's false is 'revealed'; what's quiet is made loud, what's loud is made quiet; what's good is made bad, what's bad is made good. What's life is made death, what's death is made life. In a word: OPPOSITENESS. God's Truth can be discerned by REVERSING the meaning/quality loudly 'advertised', in the world. Or, 'urged' by your own body.
This reversing-TOWARD-God (away from Satan) is 'THE FLIP'. It actually comes in two flavors: "G-2 flip", the way to decipher what's true beneath the noise, as depicted in the previous paragraph. The second flavor is even more powerful, a plain "flip" in volitional orientation to a thing, based on the very objection itself. You know: the very thing which once upset you, now thrills you. Like, at one time we all found the Gospel offensive, but somewhere along the line we flipped our volitional orientation to positive, and believed in Christ. That flip occurred because whatever we had found objectionable, that very thing somehow got re-associated in our minds with good. So, we believed.
The Flip is really useful, in defeating temptation. Am I tempted to be angry? Ok, then 'flip' the thing that's making me angry. Say what makes me tempted to be angry, is some stupidity I see: via the HS' enabling Divine Power, thus seeing through My Lord's Eyes, as it were, I can 'flip' the association of stupidity into love: Dear God, they are as blind, too. As Paul says in Romans 7 (end): "Who will deliver me from this body-of-death? Thank God [the Father], [I will be delivered] through Jesus Christ Our Lord!" The 'flip' has the function of REPLACING the 'anger' association (once held) with LOVE. HA HA, temptation! Now that 'temptation' is my friend, my ally -- WITH God, not away from Him.
For me, this flipping represents the entire process of living on Doctrine, the entire meaning of the second facet of Righteousness. The "4 Decisions" (a doctrine my pastor teaches, covered at length in Fixes.htm and Fixes2.htm) is the underlying rationale: doctrine atones, propitiates, reconciles, and redeems every 'low' in life. Just as He did, for us 'low': Romans 5:8.
In practice, what gets to me personally are the mundane lows of life, not so much because they are painful or frustrating or whatever, but because they are low compared to the High Doctrine which I am privileged to know. It's a hallmark characteristic, the constant in-the-face deadness of life, versus the Beautimous Lord one comes to constantly see. Everyone, however high in the spiritual life, flubs this 'differential', as was explained in the "Reasons" of Part III. It's part of the growing process, to learn how to mediate the low via the high of knowing Him.
Doctrine applied to the lows BAPTISES them, and constitutes a Greater High than would be realizable absent the low. For, this is what happened to Christ on the Cross, as Part IV's "Combat" table explained. To get from 'not-wanting' to 'wanting' isn't some la-la experience. The annoyance remains, and even gets worse, for in spiritual adulthood, you don't need the 'thorn' of it taken away, anymore. The Doctrinal Meaning one learns to see and love via those Diamond Deposits just 'grows up around it', and eventually appropriates the thing's nature to mean the OPPOSITE of what the thing means on its own. Even while the thing worsens. Just like, at the Cross.
For, the entire question of the "small" is the very issue God Himself faced in the Decree: to create, and thus marry endless crosses forever -- or not? Marry! said the Father, in the Decree. Marry! said the Son in 1Tim2:5. Marry! said the Spirit. Father thus kitted us out with the greatest dowry: Eph1. Spirit restored the demon-trashed earth in Gen1:2, and restores us at salvation to a higher life than Adam ever had (1Cor2,5, Rom5). Son, of course, united us in Him (e.g., 2Cor5:21 and all of Rom6-8). So, then: this little stuff is a Picture of God's Own Love for us. Unending crosses, because His Love wants "the all things". Not just nice things, not just big things. But, even us. So, even a paper clip.
We get the same opportunity for the Holy Spirit to carry us beyond all barriers. This topic was discussed at length in the three pale-yellow-brick tables of the "God's Paradox", "Script Target" sections of this page (links above). Think the idea over; it's a really big help to see Isa53:10-12 in combined-text translation (BHS and LXX), which no published Bible even has: see Isa53.htm, especially the bottom of page.
For, once you recognize how nothing small IS small, you will understand why brushing your teeth While Thinking Doctrine accomplishes more 'production' than all the money in all the history of this planet, combined.
As the "Satan's rebellion" bullet in Fixes link explains, Satan recognized sometime before his own prehistoric fall, that everything was about 'Cross'. This, he hated. So this, he satirizes via his religious propaganda, beginning with that Tree in the Garden, as we saw in Part II. This pre-fall recognition is what flipped him into rebellion.
My pastor has always taught that Satan had advance knowledge of the Son's Plan to take on humanity and go to the Cross. So for the angels, who probably variantly had some understanding of this plan, this was their eschatology, analogous to the OT folks getting the "promise"; and of course, us getting our own 'brands' of eschatology. So, then: what does one think of God's Plan? Happy? Good? Bad? Just as we face that issue, and like it or lump it, so also, did they.
For, the Cross is everywhere and always our future. Unendingly. God wanted it, and didn't even want to be God without it: Phili2:5-10. So of course, all who are less than God would have the opportunity to want it, learn it, get it, also. Which opportunity, each of us has, to accept or reject, every moment we are alive. Forever. To some extent, we can't avoid it, because Heb10:5 means we ALL got bodies, so we all could learn. We choose, variantly, to learn it. But to a certain extent, we get it, whether we want it or not -- because we have bodies.
This isn't an easy doctrine to take. Maybe an illustration from modern (really Bezite) Calvinism will help. Calvinism means to stress the importance of Sovereignty and Grace. However, in trying to figure out the relationship of God's Attributes within Himself, and the consequent relationship to man especially post-fall and in hell, Calvinism always gets bollixed over the question of God incurring COST. So, Calvinism comes up with some really goofy ideas to reconcile the COST facts, like mistaking man's genetic sin nature for a loss of free will, claiming that Christ's payment on the Cross was only for the elect, imagining that somehow God gets some kind of satisfaction from those unpaid hellions roasting in the eternal flames. All this convoluted reconciliation is for a noble purpose: Calvinism's premise is that COST TO GOD should not happen, because that would be unfair; or, worse than unfair, COST would be an imposition on Sovereignty, which is anathema.
That premise is correct. However, and this is what Satan&Co., nor Calvinists nor most of us humans apprehend -- LOVE, which Sovereignty also 'is' (God is undivided in Essence), only maximizes expression with COST. If the result of cost is a cycling profit, fabulous. But, Love would never want the COST taken away. Because, the "profit", knowing Father, (and Father says this of Son, Spirit of both of them, etc) -- the "profit" of Being With Father In Thinking, is first. First in reality sequence, first in importance, sine qua non, alpha and omega, Shema Israel, unique, United.
So, Sovereignty Demands/ Loves/ Wants/ Decrees there be an unending Cost/Cross series UNITED also, in order to BALANCE and maximally express that high First Enjoyment, or Love is frustrated. Ergo, Heb 10:5, Always. Thus Heb10:10-17, forever. That's why the Book of Hebrews spends SO much time explaining why works is not the spiritual life: rather, a Body, in which cycles a 'body' of Shared Thinking, HIS. Oneness. Communion. Victory of Cross. Unending. Ergo, Heb 10:5, Always. Thus Heb10:10-17, forever.
The upshot is, going to 'hell' WITH God is better than all the 'heaven' you can even dream of, without Him. It's Him, who is 'Heaven': His Character, Being is more 'heaven', than the 'heaven' which is the Eternal State. Doesn't even matter if Satan were to win the Conflict. He's Heaven, so anything with Him is Heaven. TOGETHERNESS. One. John 17. So, then: Anything apart from Him, however otherwise good, is the worst of hells.
What happened to Paul? Paul's emotional attachment to his fellow-Jews 'caused' him to overlook the obvious Will of God. Satan had switched 'obvious Will' with 'obvious emotion'..and snared (possibly) the greatest believer of all time. So, what will Satan&Co. do to us? Like the demon said to the seven sons of Sceva, in Acts 19:15: "Jesus I know, and Paul I know -- but who-the-bleep are YOU????" In short, we are more prone to such mistakes. Even without any 'help' from Satan&Co.
A quicker version of the 'overlooked obvious' is something I call "Where's the litmus?" Its purpose: to find what is truly the Righteous decision, especially when not all facts are sufficiently known. It's kinda like Urim and Thummin. Here's a crude example of a litmus: if you feel the urge to go to the bathroom, that 'urge' is the litmus to prove a "yes" to the question, "Should I go to the bathroom?" In short, what's the necessity, "pro-" a question? What's the necessity "con-" a question? It's surprising how this litmus test will ferret out emotional clouding. The trick is, to be honest, and TRULY find pros and cons. True pros and cons lead always to other alternative questions, which likewise must be run through the same litmus-finding.
DOCTRINAL ANSWER KEY==>If you don't find a doctrinal litmus, the answer to the question, is "no".
Either it's the wrong time, or the wrong slant, or something else is wrong. Put the question aside and reconsider later.
You can use this litmus test on anything from whether you should marry, move -- to little things, like "Should I watch TV?" It helps one remember an obvious corollary of the First Commandment: if God is to be loved with all one's heart and soul and mind, then it follows that one constantly looks at, consults, the One Loved. That God's Thinking Standard should be consulted for every question, not just the so-called 'big things' in life: Deut4:2,4 (which uses "cleave", a KJV euphemism for the sex act),6-7,9,29,40; 5:32, 6:3-9.
A much bigger version of "Where's the Litmus" follows in the table below. It's super-handy for detecting lies or mistakes of any kind; and thus, for better learning Truth.
Falsehoods anywhere of any kind, or false/ incorrect translations/ interpretations of Bible/ verses are all pretty easy to spot: for, Satan's D-I-O-S Grand Strategy runs rampant through each one. Both the MEGA (attack strategy, Part IV) and the "Dungheap" (Part II) tables are woven into D-I-O-S; their combined MASS is used to mortgage the truth about the bulleted items in the olive table below (within this one). [Satan always plays off the Power of Truth to leverage fulfillment of his own goals.] So, those bullets can be used to parse and test out any idea, doctrine, translation, or interpretation which is claimed true. Bear in mind that when we believe falsehood we genuinely don't see what's wrong, so the bullets might need to be 'fired' several times. Keep trying: sometimes it helps to put the claimed truth on a sheet of paper where you can see it, plain. "Bullet Usage Tips" you'll find helpful follow the olive table. A falsehood will always:
BULLET USAGE TIPS:
So, let's take a commonly-heard claim that the poor should get something from the rich (i.e., welfare, higher wages, you pick something). Inherent in that claim is a Justice issue: that the rich owe the poor something. Also inherent, that the Way To Redress the alleged injustice is by a) some external mediator enforcing the redress (i.e., government), and b) getting that redress FROM 'the rich'. Thirdly, there's always some claim about what the redress should be. In the US, on the topic of taxes, for example, the 'redress' is that the rich should pay taxes at a higher rate. Now, if you know economics, you know that no matter how you change taxes, the poor are the ones who always end up paying the taxes, due to them always needing to buy products/services from those who are richer than they; since one has to be richer, to afford to offer some product/service. (BTW: this is why it's always dumb to sue, i.e., a corporation. You only hurt its employees, and those who buy its products. If you sue another person, you hurt those who depend on him, too. Hence the Biblical injunction against suing: 1Cor6:1,6, which is based on our witness function before men, also: fundamental principle remains Lev19:18, Jas2:8. Related verses are Prov25:8, Isa29:21(holy Enron!), Dan 7:10, 7:26 Matt5:40, NIV.)
Wow: in but a few seconds, the claim that rich owe poor, is proven to be based on a lie! For, a) the claim that the mediator should be human is itself a lie; b) the COMPETENCE of the claim itself can't be known as well by a human, compared to God! Further, which rich, which poor, and what redress? If only some of the rich are hurting the poor, is it fair to have all of them pay a higher tax rate? And which ones are hurting the poor, and what does "hurting" mean? If the poor person claims to be hurt, or if the rich one claims not to be hurting? How do we really know? More fundamentally: do we humans know as much as God? Are we humans as righteous as God? So how competent will we be at first knowing how righteous is the claim, and second knowing how to redress it? What if the redress unfairly affects the very victims it's supposed to help? What if innocent people are hurt by the redress? And so on. (Of course, since we have to make decisions like this in life, we can't avoid making mistakes. But we can avoid Satan's landmines better, by using the equivalent of this Lie Detector Matrix!) |
Let's now look at Matt4's structure, to see how Satan used his 'script' on the Lord. Here we'll see the entire picture, from Scripture itself. You'll need to look at the wording and turn the text over in your brain (use 1Jn1:9, or you'll end up as frustrated as Descartes was). 'Because, no amount of writing here can effectively list all the many meanings in this passage. (God's Mind is Infinite, so of course no verse in Scripture can have its meanings exhausted!) So, at best, as I tried to do in Parts I-V, here I can but highlight more meanings. The Holy Spirit will elaborate, by recalling to your mind common-sense things and other interrelationships you already know -- to see how vast are the temptations here.
1st Temptation, speak-stones-into-bread. That's primarily REVERSAL, because body is emphasized, instead of God. Note the Lord's reply, so you can see how the Lord 'reversed the reversal' (God likes playing on words, too, heh).
Satan's also using 'noise': his very speaking covers up the below-radar 'hit' on the Lord's hungry body, above. His tone-of-voice (which the English doesn't properly render) is extremely deferential and polite. That's a temptation to reciprocation. When you hear someone speak nicely, you're subliminally inclined to give in to what the person asks. That's the value of 'noise'. [It's called the 'imperative of entreaty' in the Greek, and is always used to connote a very respectful inferior (Satan) begging a highly-respected superior (Jesus) to do something. Satan's not kidding around when he uses this highly-deferential tone. He has a lot of admiration for the Lord's Humanity. Mixed with apoplexy, consternation, confusion, despising...you name it.]
Satan's OBVIOUSNESS should be obvious. He's making an allusion to 2nd Meribah, where Moses struck the Rock, instead of speaking to it (Num20:8-12). So, he's trying to strike Christ by tempting Him to speak-Rock -- see the OBVIOUS REVERSAL? He's also making an analogy between the bread for the body and the bread of the Word, and is deliberately insulting -- which is even worse, due to the polite 'noise': he's making fun of his own concern over the Lord's hunger (which concern is genuine). Satan's also making fun of the Lord obeying the Father's command to go hungry; he's also making fun of the Father, that way. In short, OBVIOUSNESS (here) is designed to bait Him into hostile reaction, in order to defend Father against such an insult. [Don't be surprised Satan holds contrary attitudes. He loves and hates all at the same time, because he's fundamentally attracted to AND repelled by God/Christ at the same time -- just like anyone else. In fact, you can see here how he manages to 'resist' his own 'temptation' to Love the Lord -- by making fun of his own admiration of Him. It's truly sad, and very revealing. This is how we all think, too. Naturally, due to sin's nature. It's a defense mechanism!]
2nd Temptation, jump from Temple. That's primarily 'MISEMPHASIS', twisting the quoted verses of Ps91 into a 'blanket immunity' clause. It's thus also reversal, too, because Satan's trying to tempt the Christ by REVERSING the verses' meaning. That portion of Ps91 is a promise that the Lord will protect one from danger -- not a promise that the Lord will protect one from self-inflicted folly. Satan misemphasizes, thus, the 'protection' without noting the context -- danger which is NOT self-inflicted -- hence leaves out a key phrase in Ps91 when he quotes the clause.
It's also REVERSAL in another way. The Cross will be a visible display (so Satan thinks) -- so, Satan substitutes a different kind of display (and death, maybe): prove self God by jumping, rather than by hanging. (Father probably wouldn't save Humanity if Son jumped, so Son would have to 'show off' Deity in an impermissible way, by jumping to a 'safe landing'.)
Satan's thus using the 'noise' of a VISIBLE jump to appeal to the Christ's ardent desire that everyone believe in Him for salvation. Satan's thus using OBVIOUSNESS (the visible jumping) to satirize the Cross, 'push Jesus over the edge': to bait Him into anger. So OBVIOUSNESS is also employed to make it clear to the Christ that Satan truly thinks the Cross is 'beneath' Christ's calling. (See how a-compliment-becomes-an-insult, just like the first Temptation?)
Yet another layer (there are a bizillion more): Satan's blatantly telling the Christ that His Payment for Sins is suicidal: of no more value than jumping from a cliff, for very few will ever believe in Him. So, why not jump? Satan's also making fun of the Father's requirement that sins be paid, since after all, God is Inviolably Righteous. Thus Satan deliberately puts down the 2nd facet of Righteousness; for, if that 2nd facet is so good -- why should sins be paid for, at ALL (same argument as is made in the Koran)? So, it's just as stupid, this paying for sins, as jumping from a Temple. So why not jump? Father just wants you to be a masochist...
Satan's also offering a SUBSTITUTE Cross, here. (He also does this in the 3rd Temptation). See, the First Temptation's topmost rationale was basically, "it's unfair of Father to ask you to fast." As always, Satan uses Truth in a shaded way. Here, his favorite use of truth: a lower truth, emphasized to drown out the higher Truth of life-with-God-is-more-important-than-food. Having failed that ruse, Satan's topmost rationale in the 2nd Temptation is, ok, if you want to be a martyr, why not jump, since that shows more effectively that you really ARE the Messiah than by dying on a Cross as if you were merely a man. Again, the lesser truth of Christ's Own Purpose, Motive and Nature, compared to the FATHER getting paid. Satan upped the ante on what lesser-truth he used, you see. So this 2nd Temptation is even greater than the first one.
In many ways, this last temptation is the most complex. All four characteristics are so tightly interwoven that it's hard to discuss them separately. See, Christ was Ruler anyway, but to get the Rulership vested, He had to go to the Cross. Satan's tempting the Lord to reject the Father's Plan in the 'Name' of allegedly 'sparing' the Father the pain of having to judge His Own Son. This REVERSAL is requested in the name of the very LOVE Christ has the most: toward the Father.
Satan's not being duplicitous -- had the Son taken the offer, Satan really would have admitted 'defeat'. Of course, he'd then 'save' all demons/unbelievers from the Lake of Fire, since the Son's acceptance would mean no Cross could occur. So, Satan's putting his own life on the line, here. That's one of the layers-of-meaning in this offer. See, if the Christ had accepted, He could easily zap Satan into oblivion (from His Deity), instead of doing any 'obeisance' at all. Satan was taking that chance. Hoping for it, even. (Again, this was but one of many layers of meaning to this temptation.)
Its OBVIOUS baldness is stated -- as are the other two temptations -- in a disarming way. Satan is truly flummoxed. He uses his own weakness as a weapon, by truly communicating his flummoxed attitude, by reversing the apodosis and protasis in the temptation. Moreover, the if-you-will-kneel is 2nd class condition, in the Greek: the "if" is used with a Greek verb tense which denies truth -- meaning Satan was admitting he was defeated, that he knows the Lord will not 'kneel'. This is a genuine statement on his part. It tempts the Lord's compassion. So, he ends the temptation that way, to 'hook' the Lord's compassion in the first clause: the I-will-give-you-all clause. In short, he's using self-deprecating humor, plus truth of his future -- aiming them all at Christ's body: its reciprocity reflex, again. 'Trying to get the Lord to rationalize a token obeisance, or an-immediate-destruction-of-Satan, so to 'save the innocent' from the Lake of Fire. The Lord loves Satan very, very much, and Satan knows it. He's using the Lord's own Love as a weapon against Him! And Satan's making himself the substitute savior in the process!
Satan's 'misemphasis' should be OBVIOUS: he's stressing his own being-conquered, to hide the conquest OVER the Cross.
Thus, he's OBVIOUSLY insulting, again! He's insulting the Lord's love of mankind, the Lord's long training to learn how to NOT use His Deity, the Lord's Love of the Father, and -- especially -- the Father's Will. So, he's still trying to bait the Lord to react in anger.
Again, to stress the point about seduction: WORKS SEDUCE. They are visible, they tempt reciprocity, they mask the soul's need-to-grow in favor of the body's need-to-do. They seduce the worker into thinking he's "in the Light". They seduce the recipient(s) into thinking works are the way to be spiritual. They seduce anyone knowing about them into thinking BOTH categories of evil (being-in-the-light, works=spirituality). Matt4, in spades.
That's one reason why, when the Lord finally did 'go public', only a few were healed, only a few times were people fed. He did such things as a calling card -- but only rarely, lest people only want Him for the goodies. As it was, due to even the few miracles He did do, so many 'groupies' came around, He had push them away -- responding somewhat coldly, as in the foxes-have-holes verse. The Worm ("tola", in Hebrew: see Ps22) had to be crushed -- and anyone following Him would be crushed, too. Such seduction-counters were constantly stated, so that people wouldn't be seduced by the visible miracles. Principle: God WON'T seduce. So that 'sign' or 'proof' of Him you may be disappointed in not getting -- you won't get, until you don't need it anymore. So that you don't want God due to goodies. God doesn't want you to need Him, but to Love Him. Love and need are mutually-exclusive. Ergo, no seduction. (Tie-in corollary concept: Gen14:21-23.)
Now, think: if Satan tempted the Lord to do works, what do you think Satan&Co. are constantly tempting us to do? Really, really think this over. Christ had already finished learning. He was on the verge of 'going visible', to do the 'work' of teaching, the 'work' of suffering man's calumny, the 'work' of the very Cross! But even so, these three temptations' works -- which any Christian falls for, instantly -- were not right. Worse, we Christians fall for them before we even get an ounce of learning about God. So we really produce evil, and can't possibly be doing anything else. Moreover, even when one is grown up, 'works' are to be avoided like the plague. If you can't prove conclusively (why, and to what extent) the proposed 'work' is ordered by God -- avoid it.
After all, if you've got this burning urge -- it's not coming from God, who uses "still, small voice".
Unconditional Love for the TruthThe Lord's Humanity feels exactly the same way. His replies to Satan prove it. Each reply is a command verse, which has zero comment about what benefit there is to the one obeying it. Live on every word which proceeds from the mouth of God. Do not put God to the test. Do not worship anyone but God alone. No statement there about why those commands would be beneficial to obey. Because, to Love, it doesn't matter if the commands are beneficial to obey. Because, to Love, it's Unconditional. The command exists, and it's from God. No 'benefit' need be there. Just as, the content of some Truth need not be beneficial, either. It's Truth. It's a command. That's Enough. |
Granted, God exploits every bad and also turns every bad into pure profit. But, that's extra, and is the other side of full-spectrum Truth. Foundationally, though, bad can just be whatever it is, free to be ugly, painful -- forever -- and that, too, is enough. Just because bad is a truth, too. And, just because it IS the foundational Truth (of finity, for the very act of creating puts into being derivative power), all other Truths can freely exist. So all that exploitation can exist. So any merit is free to be enjoyable, no longer a required-thing which of itself can never be enough. But, the Truth is enough, because Free. Good, bad, or indifferent. The Second Facet of Righteousness is thus expressed by the totality of LOVE for the Truth. All Truth. Any Truth. Just Because. [Derivative power is the essential reason why bad exists, which means either God never creates, or He commits to the full-spectrum results. Fixes.htm's "Topics Related to the Nature of God" covers this issue in detail, from the standpoint of Essence of God compared to the essence of finity, etc. Start reading from that section's beginning, and keep reading until you've finished the combat-green table regarding how the Lord in Hypostatic Union solved the problem of derivative power by means of the Cross.]
Christians, like Satan, are totally flummoxed by this UNCONDITIONAL LOVE of even such horrendous Truths. We want to do something to change it, fix it, and we think that God was Propitiated by the Lord's Sacrifice solely because the Lord would be making Righteousness out of us. That, in fact, was extra. What really happened was, Christ wanted to just pour Himself out to the Father, using something useless. Just because it was there, just because it was true, just because There Was No Merit. Just because. So, to the extent we Christians don't grow up and go through our own useless crosses (the can't do, not the can-do); to the extent we don't learn our own kenosis in the face of maximum loss with no merit -- we, too, will fall prey to Satan's temptations, and never understand Unconditional Love. So, will never reach Pleroma.
To see His Genius 'spin' on Trib events: |Click Here|
Here are some daily things you can analyze to see his 'spin':
Some Examples of black/white thinking: if a Christian acts badly, the Christian God must not be the right God. If a verse doesn't make sense, it can't be 'my' misunderstanding, it has to be a flaw in the verse, or in someone else's interpretation. If I can't see God, He must not exist. If a 'God' says one goes to Hell, such a 'God' can't have a good reason for saying that. If God killed people in the Bible, He must be a Murderer. Whatever a "Christian" says is true about the Bible, it must really be true. If it's 'scientific', it must be true. If the Pope says it, it must be true. If Daddy says it, it must be true. If it's popular, it must be 'okay'. If an expert says it, he must be right. If I feel pain, whatever's causing the pain must be bad. If I feel good, whatever's causing the good feeling must be good. You get the idea.
Another Very Tragic Example of black/white thinking: if abortion isn't murder, then it must be 'okay'. [Sorry to stress the 'prolife' problem, but it's a classic satanic ruse to curse Christ.] That's the prolifer 'logic': why they crusade to get laws passed making abortion murder. Satan then makes this 'logic' fulfill Phili3:18-19 -- how it hurts to write what follows! The blindness is twofold:
"Prolife Blasphemy" videos are viewed off-Youtube, here: click here. Anti-semitic gambit, this one. Every Jew knows there's no soul life in a 'golem' (Hebrew word for fetus, used in Psalm 139:16 and always mistranslated). They even made Frankenstein-like stories out of them for centuries. Yeah, because they know what the Bible says here; but we Christians won't read it! So now the Jews who DO read it on that topic, are made out to be pro-abortion. Christians, of course, ignore what GOD says in Exodus 21:22 and elsewhere. So the playlist proving what BIBLE says versus Christians who won't disdain to learn it, will grow as I've time to document the 340+ verses.
Ergo their Biggest Mistakes: to make the state the arbiter here is to rob God of His choice in the matter, to give to Caesar what belongs to God. So the state is smarter than God. So God is a murderer, too, since spontaneous abortions occur regularly (apart from human will).
In short, no brains are turning on, among those enamored of prolife arguments: Satan's blinded them. You can prove it quickly, because these people become implacably hostile to any suggestion that maybe the real Bible doesn't agree with their view. The suggestor is skewered as 'evil', a murderer. Strange, this hostility. From a "strange god". For, implacability is obsessiveness, so it is never from God, and is never a virtue. (English translations fail to translate "from the womb" passages idiomatically -- "from birth" is the idiomatic meaning of the Hebrew. This of course compounds their blindness. Still, they should honor God enough to at least check out the suggestion. After all, even French Bibles translate such passages "from birth", so a whole bunch of folks know the right translation.)
Satan thus works on prolifers to make their compassion serve his own denigrate-God ends. The results are so tragic. Satan's pulling the same ploy he did on Saul (who later became 'Paul'): make God a Murderer, a Sadist. To Saul(Paul), the sales pitch was that Saul should 'help' God kill Christians. To the prolifers, Satan's sales pitch is the same: 'kill' the freedom of people over whom they themselves have no rights. 'As if God needs help. Plus: 'make God a sadistic idiot, by saying He'd impute a complete soul to a partial body, which doesn't even have a finished brain! most of its time in the womb. Could Satan deride God more than this? Don't we 'catch on' to his wiles? [In Part II, just after the "SINE QUA NON..BALANCE" table, are many other points, so the reader can grasp the depth of how satanic a claim soul-in-womb really is. Satan uses man's compassion here, as always -- to impugn God's Character.]
Note how horribly his counter-God script works on the unsuspecting prolifer:
Yet More Obviousness: Adam's body was first fully formed, and next God "breathed lives" into it, and next "man became a living soul". Hello? Does no one pay attention to God's order, here?? Ahh, but 'everyone' knows that passage. So, no one notices it. Never mind that Elihu cites that same order regarding his own birth, in his discourse to Job (33:4-6), thus proving that post-initial creation, the same order is followed. Let's go for more obviousness: brain in fetus isn't fully formed until just before birth. Everyone knows that. Yet no one knows that. Fetus can't breathe at all in the womb. Everyone knows that. Yet no one knows that. Lord said 'ye must be BORN again': everyone knows that. Yet no one knows that.
Yet Even More Obviousness (aka 'could we be dumber?'): The anti-abortion crusade is a new thing -- people have believed for centuries that abortion was wrong, but look -- how many countries' governments called it murder? Ever? Where does the Bible call it murder? Nowhere. Everyone knows that, too -- since no one has put abortion on the books as murder, until very recently. Surely America was a more moral society in 1700-1940. When was abortion ever murder, in America, during that time? Could there just be a reason why not? Maybe our grandparents and great-grandparents understood the issue better than we do? Huh? What, were our grand-forebears all evil? And only 'we' see the light? Yeah, right. Gee, I guess God is the most evil, since Israel never had such a law in the Law. Ex21:22 proves why God did not make abortion murder, but hey -- who bothers to learn enough about what that verse actually says? It's like the "one" definition. Hiding in plain sight.
Oh, how cheaply is God 'sold'. Oh, how Satan abuses prolifer compassion, to blaspheme the very God they mean to praise, through their naive activism! See how Satan makes God look bad? And laughs? See how the kernel of truth -- abortion is not always 'okay', you should seek the Lord's answer, First Commandment -- see how that kernel is overblown and hence REVERSED, so to cover up God's Truth, to cover up the spiritual life, to cover up Christ's Real Work on the Cross? If you don't understand there is no life in the womb, you will never understand the need for 1Jn1:9 and the role of sin. James makes quite a point about temptation being a PREGNANCY, so it's dead (so don't get anal over being tempted).. but when volition births (agrees to) the temptation, it only then becomes sin. So prolifers are necessarily carnal their whole lives, spiritual casualties of their own self-righteous arrogance. So Satan laughs his head off. They Got Aborted From The Spiritual Life By Crusading On Abortion, har har har!
How many believers' souls are thus Aborted From The Spiritual Life? Thus, bringing ruin on their home countries, as bad Royalty always do? How many unbelievers' souls keep on being Thus Aborted From Christ? 'Because they look at the insanity of the prolife crusade, and, themselves infected by black/white thinking from the prolifers, conclude: "Christianity is bunk!"
So, we know that Satan loves to abort us all, so that the Son of God in Heaven will have only spiritual-retards for companionship. So that the Christ will have paid..for nothing. And that, while Satan burns, will be his satisfaction. His fantasy, even.
You and I have been exposed, now, to his sickness. But also, to the Lord's healing. May we grow away from Heb 5:11-6:6, and instead, up in Him, so to realize 2Pet3:18. Both we, and all our brethren! After all, that's truly being 'prolife'...
