Mankind is innately and consummately religious. Those who are not taught religion begin at a very early age to develop their own. Those who are taught a religion reach a point in life where that religion taught to them does not fit their personal preferences, or lifestyle. Rather than conform to the religion they modify it to conform to their individual desire.
For example, there are numerous denominations and sects of Christianity which can be very confusing. All of these sects arose out of the teachings of one man; Jesus of Nazareth (Acts 2: 22-24).1 Rather than conform to the scriptures2 each sect interprets the scriptures to conform to their own desires3 and then teaches these interpretations to others who find their precepts comforting, or at least agreeable.
The origins of this practice should not be a mystery. The first man and woman were deceived by use this very principle by the arch deceiver; Lucifer4. The conversation started with a simple question; “has God said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” The question poses a negative that didn’t exist, which in turn put the woman defensive of God’s word; a state that never should have been. There is no need to defend God’s word for God. There is only the need to stand on His word.
To this the woman replied, making the first fatal mistake. She “said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest ye die.” The actual command was that they should not eat the fruit. There was no mention made of not touching the fruit. Eve added to the scriptures to defend God.
“The serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God knows that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” Satan knew then that Eve had doubt about the command. He also could tell that she was willing to conform God’s word to suit her circumstance.
The rest is history. They both ate of the fruit, the Spirit of God left them, they were cast out of the garden and the ground became cursed. They began to die physically because corruption of the earth (second law of thermodynamics) began when the law of God was transgressed.
The first clue for Eve was in not wondering why a serpent was talking. Had she fled in fear from such a phenomenon the rest would have been moot or at least academic.
Originally God made all men of one flesh; but, when corruption began He set the bounds of their habitation and the times appointed by His will.
The world has changed; the peoples of earth have intermingled therefore their world view has changed; but, life ebbs and flows in a foreordained pattern. Truth follows physical laws and does not change; heat burns, lack of heat creates ice and water freezes, objects thrown into the air fall back to earth. Humankind lives in a world where physical laws do not change.
Day follows night, if spring is here can winter be far behind. The earth revolves around the sun and the moon revolves around the earth causing the tides to rise and fall. These things can be set to mathematical formulas and proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. They can be reproduced in a laboratory setting.
There are and always have been two major versions or world views of the beginning of mankind; from these two views stem various strains of religious beliefs.
Since religion deals with life and death issues – and since death is the only escape from the world – each religion must establish its supremacy over mankind to justify its claims, or it will fail to retain its hold on its practitioners. It is most important to the prophets, teachers and preachers of those faiths since their identity is established by the supremacy of the faith they practice.
The Jewish and Christian religion have a fixed guide and teacher in the Spirit of God and His book which contain the holy scriptures. The Bible is Holy Scripture not a book of science, history, medicine or any other scientific discipline; but, where the Bible speaks on those subjects it is absolutely accurate.
All other religions can not make this claim. They have no fixed law. Within those other systems the ruling teacher in each generation establishes the rules for the religion.
In comparatively recent history (the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) a secular religion, Darwinism, began to crop up and bring confusion to the question of historical beginnings. It is based upon humanism, an ancient form of self-worship which denies God and establishes man as its supreme being. Evolution stemmed from an attempt to discredit sacred writings of the Jews and Christians and deny the theory of the Creation of man by a Supreme Being and law giver. This opens the premises of the Bible to argument and allows each man woman and child to choose what they will believe as absolute truth or myth, with science as the referee.
The main discrepancy between the two world views is expressed by the interpretation of time. Although there are core differences in the understanding of the human condition, the best tool for the reeducation of the masses is the introduction of time and chance. In one view the oldest (and therefore first) religion worshiped one God and Creator. All others are much later inventions of mankind, whose god(s) are determined or denied through consensus by mankind. In the other view monotheism is a late invention of humanity and is part of a course of progressive inventions over hundreds of thousands of years. The key is in the expression of time.
As education is “refined” the humanist system evolves to promote the elevation of man to godhood. The theory is that the systems of religion will necessarily evaporate (die on the vine as it were), as more and more humans reach godhood. When all men are gods, then no man needs to be ruled by other men and all men will finally be equal.
What the two systems have in common is the understanding that human civilization began in what was the western part of Asia in the Tigris-Euphrates valley. The oldest civilizations were considered to be Sumer and Akkad in Mesopotamia. Until the last fifty years the Mesopotamian Valley was referred to in history books as the cradle of life. Both systems agree that the history of human civilization is no more than five thousand years old. However, as changes in the timeline of the history of humanity as a whole began to stretch out into longer timelines, the history of human civilization became prey to the prevalent theories.
Historians and cartographers have agreed, for the most part, that there was once a land bridge where now exists only ice and water. Mankind’s world wanderings,(Ger. wanderungs) went from the “fertile crescent” North and East across Europe and West across Asia and the North American continent. Mankind migrated across all the habitable regions of the American hemisphere from the northern regions to the southern tip of South America. The only question is the timeline of the process.
The accounts of the Jewish and Christian sacred writings also tell us about man being created by God in a geographic location in the Euphrates valley and spreading across the world. The scriptures tell us that after the flood – merely five thousand years ago – mankind started out in the Euphrates valley and spread outward across the surface of the earth in a very short period of time5.
If you accept a short timeline for the migration of people across the globe then the time between the fall of the Tower of Babel and the introduction of Christianity into the New World by the Spanish and Portuguese is a very short period of time. If, however, you accept a modern evolutionary view of the world then it is simply not possible for God to have maintained any form of continuity in the worship of the One God. This thought process is expressed in the question “if a native in North America has never heard of the Christ, would God still send him to Hell?”
“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it”6 History itself is a witness to this truth. Today we are once again being asked the question “has God said…?”
God’s people swear to abide by His law (His Word). When people begin to separate themselves from the Word it is always done with good intent in the beginning. Yet even those who are rescued from chaos and suffering will begin to forget as the pain begins to fade.
God is merciful when there is repentance and, by grace, He renews his covenants with his people. However, there will arrive a point in time when God will cease this repetition with final judgment.
After the exodus out of Egypt by the Children of God Israel, God met with them on Mount Sinai and in sight of all the thousands of those people spoke to them. “Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord, and all the judgments: and all the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words which the Lord hath said will we do” (Exodus 24:3). In this act, the people accepted God as Supreme Ruler over them. He was King of kings and Lord of lords. God lead them through the wilderness, fed them, clothed them, protected them from harm, all the things a king is expected to do He did perfectly.
The nation in which we live was in a similar state during it’s formation. In Europe the immigrants that set out for new lands seeking freedom from the tyranny of kings and noblemen asked God’s guidance and promised to obey, honor and give Him praise and glory for Providence over them. For a long time they lived on this new continent in a relative state of autonomy. Though governments of the old world claimed authority over the colonies, the colonies themselves enjoyed the freedom of a vast ocean on one side, and a massive wilderness on the other.
Soon, however, pressures were placed on the colonies to come together in a common bond. Because of the oppression of outside aggression the people began to demand a central government. Some even suggested the establishment of an American monarchy.
Israel, in it’s process of development, demanded a king like the kings of other peoples that were on their borders. God sent His prophet to warn them; they refused to heed the prophet. God told His prophet to tell them what the results of their choice would be.
[The prophet] told all the words of the LORD unto the people that asked of him a king. And he said, “This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots. And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your olive yards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants. And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants. And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the LORD will not hear you in that day” (I Samuel 8: 10-18).
The United States of America took God’s grace and great blessing and promised to build a nation established on Scriptural principles of freedom giving God the glory in the Declaration of Independence.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
For over two hundred years there have been ups and downs but that declaration followed by a Constitution and Bill of Rights sealed by glory rendered to the Creator was honored by Him. Time and again God interceded to save this nation from its enemies; now, however, this nation has elected a new leader with a new but not novel idea of governance.
Instead of a president in essence the people elected a messianic “ruler” with destructive attitudes of a secular god and a liberation theology. He has promised universal health care, redistribution of the world’s wealth indeed eternal life and health. The nation has chosen to turn its back on the Creator of the Universe for a lesser god who is not a god. It has fallen on evil times spiritually, financially and morally. It is on a path of self destruction. This nation governed by the will of man will destroy itself.
The person we have in power is the epitome of the humanist world view, and stands in direct opposition to the Christian world view. In the humanist’s estimation this earth, and humanity along with it, still have thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years of evolution before them. In the humanist’s estimation we need only save the world from those who would damage or destroy it, and we will remain for a long, long time. The changes we are witnessing are merely part of the cosmic evolutionary process.
Those who hold a Christian world view know that God has great patience, but that His patience has an end. The fastest way to make God lose His patience is to attempt to usurp His authority; to take His place.
The only salvation for the nation is the Church of Jesus Christ. The church has lost its moral compass and is unable to navigate the rocks and shoals it finds itself running among. It has been infiltrated with the thousands of questions related to chance and time. It has fallen to the simple, subtle question “has God said.”
“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” (II Chronicles 7:14)
At this point however: God says, “I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none” (Ezekiel 22:30).
Unless this nation repents and returns to praise and worship giving glory to the One Living God the land will spew them out.
- You men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it. [In a court of law, eyewitness evidence].
- “…be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:2).
- Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ” (I Corinthians 1:12)…For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal [as opposed to spiritual]” (I Corinthians 3:4)?
- Genesis 3
- [God] made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation” (Acts 17:26).
- George Santayana (1863-1852) Once a quote becomes popular there arises many variations of it. Plagiarism begins to be difficult to prove. I give the benefit of the doubt here to this man as author.
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