CREATURE VERSUS CREATOR
Chapter
Two
INCREASING
VERSUS DECREASING (PART II)
Study
your Bible thoroughly to learn what God requires of us human creatures. Then
study history to see the record of mankind rebelling against our Creator’s
instructions to us in the Bible. Look around you at history in the making to
see what the present day human race is doing regarding God’s Word. And then
determine that by God’s grace, you will do much better in obeying your Creator.
“Heavenly Father, please help me to be diligent to daily study the
Bible with a heart desirous to obey all of it. Please give me Thy pure,
incorruptible wisdom and thoroughly teach me the meaning of Thy Scriptures. If
it be Thy Will for me to study history not recorded in the Bible in order to
gain more wisdom about human creatures rebelling against Thee, then please
guide me to sources of accurate and true history records that Thou wouldest
have me to study. I pray this for all other Christians also. Amen.”
Look
at the vast number of Christians who believe that the knowledge of good and
evil and the ability to “rise” are God’s gifts to us and that we owe it to our
Creator to take the fullest advantage possible of them, to rise up to be as great
as we can. To fail to do so would be to fall short of what God expects us to do
with our lives here on the earth. Along with thinking that the knowledge of
good and evil and the ability to “rise” are God’s gifts to us, many Christians
think that our achieving a highly risen status, accomplishing great feats like
going to the moon, inventing all the fantastic machines and high tech gadgetry
that we make, and all such great achievements, are all God’s blessings that He
is bestowing on us for our efforts to be as great as we possibly can. So is the
thinking of many people. I believe those people are sadly mistaken in their
thinking, and that it is important for all of us to seek God’s wisdom to see if
that if true.
“Heavenly Father, I earnestly seek Thy Wisdom in this matter.
Please show me whether or not the “knowledge” we get in higher education and
the ability it gives us to “rise,” are from Thee. Please teach me whether or
not our great achievements are Thy blessings upon us. Please impart to me Thy Perfect
Wisdom concerning these things. I pray this for all other people also.
Amen.”
I
want to share the history of just a few people’s opinions on “rising” since
1800 and I will start with some that I have observed first hand.
“Thou hast corrupted thy wisdom”
While
growing up in the 1950’s and early 1960’s, I sat in many country churches in
rural Alabama, listening to old-fashioned, holy, sin hating, “rising” hating,
world hating, God loving and God fearing, uneducated preachers, as they
preached with fiery zeal on many things such as the following. “Man has gotten
so great and so puffed up with sinful pride that he is boasting that he will
even go to the moon some day. How sinful and prideful of him to boast of such.
But I stand in this pulpit to declare to you that God will never allow that to
happen…” And those preachers would go on to tell how God would stop that
“rising,” just as He stopped the building of the tower of Babel, or He would
bring about the end of the world to prevent man from accomplishing such a feat.
I recall much such preaching in the 1950’s.
Hearing
such preaching as a little boy and then as a teenager, my tender, God-fearing
heart sided with those men of God who preached such. But I was fairly certain
that those preachers were wrong in their assertions that God would stop man
from traveling to the moon. Typically, older people in the church vigorously
“Amen’ed” such preaching. But many of the younger ones felt as I did. And the
ones among them who were not so God fearing, would snicker in laughing ridicule
of the preacher and look around at each other with expressions that said, “What
a dumb old man that preacher is.”
God
had taught me to highly respect preachers. So that kept me from snickering and
laughing at them. But I would feel sorry for those preachers, because I sensed
that they had God’s Heart and Spirit in the stand they took against man’s
“rising.” But still, I saw they had come to a wrong conclusion. And it
perplexed my young mind because I couldn’t understand where they went wrong.
But over the years, God has given me good understanding of exactly why they
made such mistakes in their predictions.
Those
godly preachers did have God’s Mind and Spirit in preaching
against man going to the moon. God created man and woman to walk around
in a garden, not to fly down a highway in a death dealing motor vehicle,
or fly through the atmosphere in airplanes, or fly through space
to the moon. God is against man rising up out of his first, God ordained
estate. Those preachers did have God’s Mind concerning this. Therefore
they were against man rising up as high as the moon. Our Creator is also
against that. (An interesting side note; most of those preachers favored a
little “rising,” such as inventing motor cars, electricity, and many other such
things that gave them a softer life of ease.)
But,
in thinking that God would never allow such “far out” things as travel to the
moon, those preachers did not fully understand God’s most important words in
Genesis 3:22. “Behold, the man is become as one of us,
to know good and evil.” And even worse than that, many Christians have
simply overlooked what the Lord God said here in Genesis 3:22. Recently,
I was teaching this to an adult group of about 15 English-speaking Christians.
They all had their Bibles opened to Genesis 3:5 as I read it. “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your
eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” I
then asked them for a “show of hands,” whether they thought the serpent lied to
Eve or told her the truth when he told her they would be as gods, knowing good
and evil. I first asked who thought he lied, and all but 3 people raised their
hands. I asked who thought he told the truth and those 3 people raised their
hands. Most of these church members were mature Christians, but only about 20%
answered that question correctly. In Genesis 3:22, the Lord God Himself plainly
lets us know that the serpent had told Eve the truth. “And
the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and
evil.” So please couple Genesis 3:5 and 3:22 together in
your mind and don’t ever forget that the human race became as gods when
they first disobeyed their Creator. That’s because the correct answer to
that question is most important to us believers for two reasons.
First,
it will give us accurate understanding of the great and “God like” capabilities
that man gains by eating of the knowledge of the good and evil. That
understanding will keep us from making rash and false predictions like those
godly preachers who predicted that God would never allow man to go to the moon.
Second, it will “save” us from viewing “rising” as God blessings to us
that we should take full advantage of, by exerting maximum efforts to “rise.”
“Heavenly Father, please give me good understanding of the meaning
of Thy Words in Genesis 3:22. Help me to know that it was not Thy Will for
mankind to become as Thee, by gaining the knowledge of good and evil. Please
cause me to fully know that the human race gained that ability by disobeying
Thee. Also, please teach me all the “rising” related things we do that are in
rebellion to Thee. I pray this for all other people also. Amen.”
Most
of us Christians have not fully understood all the implications of the Lord
God’s declaration in Genesis 3:22. Many adult Christians in the 1950’s did not
think God would ever allow man to rise as highly as he has presently risen. We
did not think God would give man so much rope with which to hang himself so
well. But in becoming like God by accessing the knowledge of good and evil,
mankind gained the ability to rise to “unbelievable” heights and to destroy
himself magnificently. And God is letting that rising go on longer than many
Christians thought He would, and He is letting man accomplish astounding feats
that many Christians never thought God would tolerate. Our mistaken thinking
has stemmed from insufficient understanding of God’s Words in Genesis
3:22. Man has become as God. Therefore man is going to accomplish
many “God like” feats. So don’t let it surprise or confuse you when it happens.
The
most detrimental and the most potentially dangerous thing that has ever
happened to humans is that they became as gods upon Eve’s
and Adam’s very first disobedience to their Creator. Exercising our
God-like ability to rise is the most basic rebellious act against our
Creator that we do, and it is the most destructive thing that we do. If
you truly desire to please your Creator, you will start by opposing this
“rising” and by desiring to decrease. “I must
decrease.”
“Heavenly Father, if Brother Richard is correct in what he said in
that last paragraph, please confirm that to me. Please give me clear
understanding of “rising” being the most basic way in which we rebel against
Thee. Give me a desire to totally please Thee in this matter and give me Thy
Help to do perfectly right concerning this. Please help me to decrease. Help
all other Christians to come to a full knowledge of this most basic act of how
humans rebel against Thee and give them a desire to decrease also. Help us all,
Dear Lord, I pray. Amen.”
God
is opposed to man’s “rising,” which is a sin against God. Therefore we
who love God should also oppose rising up out of our place. Just as those
old-fashioned preachers thought God should bring an end to the world to prevent
man from going to the moon, for many years now, I have prayed for Christ to
return to earth to put a stop to all of man’s “rising.” I believe that desire
of mine is most pleasing to God. I believe that you also should have that
desire.
“Heavenly Father, if it is true that I should desire for My Lord
Jesus Christ to return to this earth now, to put a stop to man’s rising, then
please instill that desire in my heart. I pray this for all other Christians
also. Amen.”
Years
ago, a much larger number of believers had God’s Heart and Spirit concerning
man’s sin of “rising” and therefore that sin was repulsive to them and strongly
opposed by them. Their eyes were wide open to what a fearful and destructive
thing it was. And it wasn’t rare for their God-honoring convictions about that
sin to result in them making false predictions, like proclaiming that God would
never let man go to the moon. So we must be ever so careful that we do not make
the mistake of rejecting their opposition to man’s sin of “rising,” simply
because those godly preachers and Christians made mistaken predictions about
when God would stop that “rising.” Don’t make the mistake of throwing out
the baby with the bath water.
Read
the following vivid example of a mistaken prediction by a godly bishop. This
quote comes from “Our Daily Bread” by Radio Bible Class. Years ago, I cut out
this one page to keep. The writer’s initials are H.G.B. The date of this
devotional is Wednesday, September 21. I do not know the year, or the writer’s
name, as neither appears on this one page I kept.
“A
similar blunder was made by a bishop in 1870. While visiting the president of a
small denominational college, he expressed his firm biblical conviction that
nothing new could be invented. The educator, of course, disagreed. ‘Why, in 50
years I believe it may be possible for men to soar through the air like birds!’
he said. The bishop was shocked. ‘Flight is strictly reserved for the angels,’
he insisted, ‘and I beg you not to repeat your suggestion lest you be guilty of
blasphemy!’ Ironically, that mistaken bishop was none other than Milton Wright,
the father of Orville and Wilber. Only 33 years later, those 2 brothers made
their first flight in a heavier-than-air machine, the forerunner of the many
planes that now dot our skies.
“We
must be careful to avoid declaring that our ideas are based on Scriptures when
they are only biased opinions. Let’s never make the bishop’s blunder.”
So there in those last 2 sentences when H.G.B. gave his opinion
of the bishop’s speech, H.G.B. threw out the baby with the bath water.
Apparently H.G.B. considered the bishop to be mistaken in all that he
said.
What
H.G.B said about the bishop in those last 2 sentences, I will not
say. Here is what I say for all eternity about those thoughts, beliefs, and
convictions of Bishop Wright. I believe they came from God. “He
expressed his firm biblical conviction that nothing new could be invented.” He
was mistaken to believe that nothing new could or would be
invented. But no doubt, that conviction came from a truly biblical, God-taught
conviction that nothing new should be invented. No doubt but what Bishop
Wright had a conviction that nothing new should be invented because
man’s sin of “rising” was repulsive to him and a fearful thing for man to do.
The bishop knew that God hated that sin of “rising.” He knew that as the sin of
“rising” increased, God’s anger and wrath increased against it. Therefore he
knew that the time would come when God would judge it by putting a stop to it.
Personally,
I highly commend Bishop Wright for his biblical convictions and biblical
beliefs of opposing man’s sin of “rising.” Many of us who oppose this rebellion
make mistaken guesses as to when God will put an end to it. In 1870, Bishop
Wright was so repulsed by man’s “rising” that he thought God was ready to stop
it. In the 1950’s, those godly preachers who declared that God would never
allow man to go to the moon were mistaken. I personally thought for certain
that Christ would return before now (2,003) to put an end to all of
man’s inventing and “rising.” Multitudes of Christians thought that also.
Therefore many of us have been mistaken in our guessing. But praise God,
none of us are wrong to oppose man’s sin of “rising” and all the inventions he
brings froth from that sin! None of us are wrong to desire to decrease. May
God help us to do that. “I must decrease.”
Because
those of us who oppose man’s sin of “rising,” often mistakenly guess the time
when God will stop it, scoffers who favor this sin of “rising” will quickly and
loudly proclaim that we are also mistaken to believe there is anything wrong
with “rising.” No doubt many of you snickered and laughed as you read those
statements by the bishop. How ridiculous those remarks seem now in 2,003. I
have personally heard much such snickering and derisive laughter during my
lifetime, as people listened to God fearing preachers proclaim that God would
never allow man to go to the moon, never allow man to “create” life, and
such.
“He’s
behind the times.” “He’s out of touch with reality.” “He’s too old-fashioned.”
“The world has passed him by.” Truly the world has passed such people
by. But God certainly hasn’t. And the higher man “rises,” the more
ridiculous it is to risen man for anyone to oppose that “rising.” Therefore the
present-day few believers, who know God’s Mind regarding man’s sin of “rising,”
are more apt to be cowered into silence about it by the overpowering forces of
the vast majority who are set on the sin of “rising” up just as high as they
possibly can.
I
deeply admire Bishop Wright’s biblical convictions and beliefs concerning this.
“He expressed his firm biblical conviction that nothing new could be invented.”
This mistaken utterance came from a God-honouring belief that it was wrong and
sinful for man to continue to rise and invent new things.
“Flight
is strictly reserved for the angels.” Amen! That is generally correct. God put
man in the Garden to walk around in it. Man should have never left that
first, God-ordained estate to go flying down the highway, or go flying through
the sky, or to go flying through space.
“I
beg you to not repeat your suggestion lest you be guilty of blasphemy.” I have nothing
against that statement, though I am not sure just how accurate he is to call it
“blasphemy.” He may be 100% correct about that. That belief, no doubt, came
from fear of God and love for God. And I think we all should heed his
warning.
I
deeply admire Bishop Wright, the preachers who preached that God would
never allow man to go to the moon, and other such God-fearing believers who
have stood on God’s side against man’s sin of “rising.” I greatly admire them,
though they were terribly mistaken in guessing when God would put a stop to
various things. Theirs and my much inaccurate guessing has taught me to be much
more reserved and much less dogmatic about my guessing. God will
terminate, judge, and punish all sin. He will bring an end to the world
to stop all creatures from “rising” and rebelling against Him.
But
we do not know the exact times God will do those things. And when we try to
guess God’s timing and are mistaken in our predictions, we open ourselves up to
much ridicule by people who hate God. Also, those who love God are hesitant to
believe our teachings because it becomes difficult for them to discern what we
are right about or wrong about. Our inaccurate guesses and assumptions amount
to false teaching. As such, it gives the hearers an excuse to disregard and
reject the truth we have proclaimed along with it. Those who love “rising” will
readily reject everything we say against that sin, when we add a false
prediction about God stopping it at a certain time. So, for the sake of God’s
glory and to keep from destroying the credibility of the truth we teach, we
must be ever so careful about making predictions that could well be mistaken.
We should clearly state that our opinions and guesses are exactly that, and not
prophesy from God. May God help us to most careful in these matters, because we
do much harm when we are careless.
“Heavenly Father, please help me to love Thee and to also have a
holy hatred for man’s sin of rising. Please guard me from making false
predictions regarding the time when Thou wilt stop man’s rising or regarding
anything else. Please guard me from making rash and false predictions because
they will detract from Thy Truth and give scoffers much reason to scoff. I pray
this for all other Christians also. Amen.”
Present-day
mankind is so in favor of man “rising.” So let’s keep looking at some more
history of people who opposed it, in order to gain perspective on how our
thinking has changed and how we keep moving further from God’s Mind concerning
“rising.” Man’s inventing and “ rising” kicked into a much higher gear in the
1800’s. The invention of the steam engine about 1830, shortly thereafter gave
us steam-powered trains. So for the first time in all of man’s history, he now
had land transportation that was faster than the horse, a God-created animal.
(There was also some limited use of wagons with sails driven by the wind.) Soon
after steam engine trains came into use, Henry David Thoreau voiced his opinion
of them.
“Why
should we live in such a hurry and waste of life? Men think it is essential to
have commerce and export ice and talk through a telegraph and ride 30 miles an
hour. If we do not get out sleepers (railroad ties) and forge rails and devote
day and night to the work, who will build railroads? But if we stay at home and
mind our business, who will want railroads? We do not ride railroads, it rides
on us.”
In
that first sentence of his, apparently Thoreau equates “waste of life” with
“hurrying.” He clearly spoke against our need to carry on commerce, use the
telegraph, and travel as fast as 30 miles an hour. He also spoke in favor of
staying at home and minding our own business. Compare those thoughts with
present-day thinking.
I
have read of adults who were most apprehensive the first time they rode on a
steam-powered train, wondering just how hard on them such a “foreign” and
heretofore unknown experience would be. One man took out a note pad, began
writing on it, and exclaimed in surprise and joy, “Look! I can write while
moving 18 miles an hour!” Now people sit in airliners routinely reading, writing,
eating, drinking, and such, while moving hundreds of miles an hour. But that is
no longer shocking to anyone.
Life
greatly changed as the steam engine came into use, but I guess it changed much
more as electricity came into use a few decades later. Not only is it important
for us to know about people opposing “rising,” like Thoreau and the
bishop did; but also it is important to look at how shocking the new
inventions were to many people. When Thomas Edison invented the phonograph
about 1877, many people believed it was impossible for a machine to speak. Why?
Because God ordained that men, angels, and sometimes a donkey, speak. But our
Creator didn’t ordain that machines speak. Some of those people actually
fainted from shock, the first time they heard a phonograph record player
“speak.”
As
the use of electricity broadened, greatly altering life for us, many opposed
it. “Such just shouldn’t be.” I heard of a most godly preacher in the early
1900’s who strongly preached against using a microphone and amplifying one’s
voice. He was appalled at and opposed to the great power that invention gave to
mortal man. I believe that those convictions and beliefs of his came directly
from God.
With
the invention of the internal combustion engine in the late 1800’s, what vast
changes were brought upon mankind. I have heard that some people in various
nations fainted from shock the first time they saw an automobile moving on its
own power. On seeing a car pass by for the first time, some people actually
went out and smelled its tracks to see what they smelled like. Many people
dogmatically stated they would never ride in a motorcar because it was too
dangerous.
(Reader,
if you have any other “interesting” true accounts of people being opposed to
and shocked by man’s new inventions in the past, would you please send them to
me. Please document the time and source as well as possible.)
When
expected future inventions were predicted, many people strongly proclaimed that
they would never come to pass. That “unbelief” likely came from their knowledge
(conscious or subconscious) of God being opposed to man “rising” and inventing
such things. When the predicted invention did materialize, their shock came
from feelings such as, “I just can’t believe God has allowed man to go this
far!” In their hearts, they knew such “rising” was rebellion against our
Creator God. But with each succeeding generation of Christians, our love for
the sin of “rising” increases. That love for that sin continually brings on
blindness, preventing most present-day believers from seeing anything wrong
with “rising.”
“Without natural affection”
When
these major steps (steam engine, electricity, internal combustion engines,
airplanes, space travel, etc.) in “rising” occurred, the adults living at that
time had a good ability of recognizing it as being alien to the life our
Creator ordained for us. But children born thereafter grow up perceiving these
higher planes of advancement to be the “normal” lifestyle. Therefore their
blindness, to anything being wrong with it, is most difficult to overcome.
And the lifestyle God ordained for us becomes more “foreign” to them, as the
following true story well illustrates in a somewhat humorous way. (I do not
have the source of it.)
“My great grandfather rode horses but was afraid
to ride trains.
My
grandfather rode trains but was afraid to drive a car.
My
Daddy drives a car but is afraid to fly.
I
fly all the time but I am afraid to ride a horse.”
(Talk
about a completed circuit!)
Therefore
each succeeding generation is less shocked by “rising” and opposes it less.
Each new generation grows to love it more, want more of it, and to work ever so
hard to bring about greater change, to “rise” as high as possible. Our high
tech generation has become awfully brazen regarding this, proudly proclaiming
that there is no longer any limit as to how high man can rise. In his own eyes,
he has become as great as, or greater than, God; thereby losing all knowledge
of his need for his Creator. Truly this is a most grievous sin that is most
destructive to the human race and to God’s creation on this earth.
Modern
man has come to madly love the mind boggling POWER our high tech inventions
give to us. Therefore he goes all out to invent greater, more powerful “things”
that will make him into a more powerful creature, a more highly “risen”
creature. Whereas adults literally fainted from shock upon seeing (and
hearing) new inventions in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, now most all of us
have become “shock proof.” Nothing really surprises any of us any more.
Presently, 6-year-olds open Christmas packages that contain robotic-like high
tech toys that cost hundreds of dollars. When these gadgets walk, talk, and do
numerous “unbelievable” feats, those little children are not shocked by
that. Rather they soon become bored by it. This is one area in which we have
become “without natural affection.” (II Timothy
3:3)
Nowadays,
from the time they are old enough to do anything, little children spend much of
their time freely using a vast array of high tech gadgets. By doing so, tiny
children enter into “virtual worlds” (made by Satan), virtually unlimited in
what they contain. Those who explore these worlds are made to feel as if they
are in charge of those worlds, the “gods” of those worlds. That is most
alarming because it is turning them into “gods” like nothing else so far has
had the ability to turn them into “gods.” All the great POWER those gadgets
give little children, whose minds are so formative, is literally changing them
into “beasts” who will become their own “gods” absolutely. They will
absolutely have no other gods before them, even the True God their Creator. The
Words of the Bible will be made so alien to their minds by the great power of
high tech that it will be nigh to impossible for them to believe an Omnipotent
God created them, that they have sinned against that God, and need to repent to
that Creator God and trust in Him as their Saviour.
Parents,
I believe one of the surest ways to send your precious children straight to
Hell is to let them freely be exposed to and freely use all the high tech
gadgets possible. Those things are weapons of the devil, infested with demons
and containing great satanic power. The LOVE your children WILL acquire for the
awesome power in those products of man’s sin of “rising,” will be much stronger
and more profound than you can imagine. That love for and the addiction to
those gadgets will come to totally fill and possess their beings, making it
impossible for them to love their Creator with any of their heart, much less
all of their heart. It also severely “wraps” the love God ordained for them to
have toward other human creatures, parents, spouse, children, family, friends,
and fellow mankind. They quickly come to spend all the time possible with such
high tech gadgets.
Present-day
man readily laughs at how ridiculous the bishop was for saying nothing new
would be invented after 1870. They would readily laugh at Thoreau for
questioning man’s need to travel 30 miles an hour. Presently, people consider
such old-fashioned thinking to be ridiculous because they are in the process of
totally alienating themselves from God’s Mind concerning these matters. They
have come to love the power of this sin of “rising” like they have never loved
anything else, including their Creator and other people. All caution, reserve,
and restraint regarding “rising,” and all opposition to it are totally
vanishing as the masses fervently embrace “rising” as if it were their best
friend. Their faces glow with excitement and joy over the news of each new
invention, advancement, discovery, and such. Their speech is filled with
excitement as they praise each higher plateau gained, for making man greater
and more powerful. How tragic that this is not only the mindset of God hating
Christ rejecters, but is also becoming the mindset of more and more Christian
believers. What a shame and disgrace that is. “I must
decrease.”
“Heavenly Father, please reveal to me everything about my thinking
regarding the above mentioned matters, that is displeasing to Thee. Please show
me clearly why my beliefs are wrong concerning these things. Please clearly
teach me what is right and pleasing to Thee concerning us believers decreasing
instead of rising and increasing. And by Thy grace and power, please help me to
get right in these matters. I pray this for all other Christians also. Amen.”
“Now nothing will be restrained from
them”
Much
of what I have written thus far in this chapter is toward the goal of
impressing upon you the deep meaning of our Creator’s Words in Genesis 3:22. “And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of
us, to know good and evil.” Also please listen to what He said when He
came down to see the city and the tower (of Babel), which the children of men
builded. “And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one,
and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing
will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.” (Genesis
11:6) By eating much knowledge of good and evil, degenerate mankind gains much
ability to “rise up” very high in rebellion against his Creator. “Now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have
imagined to do.” Apart from God Himself intervening as He did at the
tower of Babel, He clearly tells us here that there is nothing to restrain them
from doing what they imagine and desire to do regarding “rising.” Fully
understanding that will enable you to comprehend why man has risen so highly to
date.
Starting
in the 19th Century with the invention of the steam engine and the
internal combustion engine, and with the discovery of electricity, man gained
most high plateaus never known before and never before thought possible by many
people. Till sometime during the 19th Century, much of life went on
pretty much as it had since Adam and Eve were turned out of the Garden. Until
the 1800’s, the richest people and the most powerful kings and rulers on
earth still warmed themselves by a wood or coal fire. They had to use
candles, oil lamps, or torches to dispel just a little of the darkness of
night. The most richest and most powerful people on earth walked around inside
their abodes at night, carrying a “candlestick.” When traveling, their fastest
land transportation was a God created horse. In order to communicate with
someone not in their presence, they had to send a verbal or written message by
a person running on his own feet or riding a God created animal. Of course,
people traveled on the waters of this earth also. And until the 1800’s, the
fastest transportation on water was wind driven boats and ships. In order to
enjoy music and singing, people had to be in the presence of the singers and
musicians. The same was true for enjoying any human performance, sports,
dancing, drama, etc.; the richest and most powerful people on the face of the
earth had to be in the presence of the performers to enjoy the performance.
Contrast
their life with your much more highly “risen” life. With an occasional
adjustment of the temperature setting on the “machines” that warm you in cold
weather and cool you in hot weather, you enjoy a comfortable temperature in
your house, vehicles, and work place year-round with no effort on your part.
With the flip of a few switches, you can expel the darkness of night from your
entire large abode, inside and out, flooding any size area with bright light as
of noonday. When traveling, you can fly through the air at hundreds of miles an
hour to destinations all over this planet and at the greatest comfort and ease,
while dining and enjoying many other pleasures. You can carry on two-way
communications with people all over the world, and you can send and receive instant
one-way communications by many different means. You can listen to and see an
exact image of human performances, news in the making, and other events going
on all over this planet, as they occur. Not only can you do these last few
things I mentioned from a “fixed” location, but also you can do most of them
while traveling in a vehicle, even while walking or jogging. I will stop with
that brief list out of numerous “God-like” things that masses of “common,
everyday people” like you presently do routinely most every day. But until
well into the 1800’s, none of the richest and most powerful people on the
face of this earth had ever been able to do anything like that. So few people
had even dared to dream that those things would ever be possible. “You’ve come
a long way, baby!”
So
I want you to think on those few examples and consider how highly “risen” we
have become in those and many more areas (medicine and such). And I want you to
know it is because those words that the tempter spoke to Eve were true; “ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” Believe
our Creator’s Words when He said, “Behold, the man is
become as one of us, to know good and evil.” Also believe Him
when He said, “now nothing will be restrained from
them, which they have imagined to do.”
“Heavenly Father, please help me to fully comprehend these truths
and please guard me from any error that Brother Richard may have written here.
Please help me to clearly see how that man gained the ability to be as gods by
first disobeying Thee. Help me to understand how wrong it is of us to become
like gods and how destructive it is to us. I pray that all other people would
come to understand these things also. Please grant us Thy Wisdom, dear Lord, I
pray. Amen.”
Godly
men’s holy hatred for this sin of “rising” has resulted in them making many
rash and inaccurate statements about what God would do about that sin and about
when He would stop it. Therefore to keep from uttering such mistaken opinions
yourself, always bear in mind the deep significance of our Creator’s Words in
Genesis 3:22 and 11:6. Knowing the full meaning of these 2 things our Lord
spoke about “risen” man will keep you from being perplexed as you watch mankind
rising to no end. And while you observe masses of people rising to their
destruction, desperately pray that God will help you to decrease. “I must decrease.”
“Heavenly Father, please create within me a most desperate and
most earnest desire to decrease to the place Thou wouldest have me to be.
Please work in my heart to destroy all my desires to arise above what is
pleasing to Thee. I pray that Thou wouldest work these desires into the hearts
of all other people also. Help us, Lord, I pray. Amen.”
“The people is one”
In
the same way as men came together to accomplish the great, unrestrained feat of
building the tower of Babel, now globalization brings the peoples of many nations
together to accomplish the greatest feats possible, completely unrestrained.
This unchecked sin of “rising” is repulsive to God and to God loving people
like Bishop Wright. But let us be careful about making rash predictions that
could easily be wrong. God will stop all of man’s “rising” and inventing
at a time of His Own Choosing. Till then, it will benefit all us who know God
to oppose this sin of “rising” and to set our hearts on decreasing. “I must decrease.”
It
is most regrettable to see how that man’s unlimited rising has ceased to shock
Christian believers and to be repulsive to them, like it was to Bishop Wright.
How sad to see Christians come to love the power of it, come to embrace it, and
throw themselves whole-heartedly into this global effort of rising. “The people is one.”
But
our Creator Who said, “I change not,” in Malachi
3:6, has never, and never will, change about what He ordained for His
creatures (angels and humans). Therefore it would behoove all of us creatures
to love the first estate that our Creator ordained for us, desire to be in it,
and not desire to rise up out of it.
“In the beginning God created”
Look
at how man’s vocabulary has changed as he rises. Now, when man “makes” or
“invents” something new, he typically declares that he “created” those things.
Thus he proudly lies about what he did. Only an All-Powerful God, our Creator,
has the ability to create things in the truest meaning of that verb. And
when we use that verb, “create,” to boast of the many things we are able to
make and invent, we usurp a realm that totally belongs to our Creator God. May
God help us to see that it is rebellion and sin for us to do that, and may He
help us to cease from doing it.
In
the past, fear of and respect for our Creator God kept men from using the word,
“create,” to describe their own doings. But during the last half of the 20th
century, it came to be commonplace for people to use such speech. Doing so
naturally tends to give us a higher opinion of ourselves, which aids in
“raising” us up. Listen to how frequently people speak of “creating” something.
Our Creator God would be most pleased with us refraining from such speech and
also teaching our children to do likewise. Oh, the many and various things we
are diligent to do and say, in order to “raise” ourselves up to be the greatest
god possible, or even just to appear to be great. May God give us a heart to
decrease.
“Heavenly Father, if it displeases Thee for me to speak of me
“creating” things, then please reveal that to me and help me cease to speak
that way. Amen.”
“Professing themselves to be wise,
they became fools”
Think
about the much training (some of it most intensive) we receive in our lifetime
to “raise” us up and make us “God like” in power. Most all education systems throughout
the world go far beyond teaching their students to read, write, and do math.
They intensely feed them all the knowledge of good and evil possible to aid
them in “rising.” They also diligently train students to make “God like”
decisions and to act like God by using power and authority that God has not
delegated to humans. I still vividly recall my university psychology professor
vigorously trying to train us students like that.
“If
you could end all the suffering in the world by turning over one 12-year-old
girl to a space monster for him to torture and abuse her in every way possible,
would you do it?”
There
is absolutely no profit in us pondering such hypothetical situations that we
will never face in reality. But that professor did that to train us to
start making decisions that belong only to God. And our tax dollars fund much
such insane sin inside our nation’s public schools while the government stands
vigilant guard to make sure God and the Bible are kept out of those cesspools
of the knowledge of good and evil. I sat there in outraged silence at such a
terrible question. Most of the students in that large class pondered the
question. And of the ones who voiced an answer, all replied, “No.”
“Oh,
come on! Just think! You could end all the vast suffering throughout the whole
world. Millions of people suffer as much as that one girl would suffer at the
hands of that space monster. You could end all their sufferings by agreeing to
let just one person suffer.” And with such swelling, persuasive words, the
professor started bringing up this subject each day, spending just a little
time on it, steadily trying to change us to get us to think like gods.
He
certainly had his work cut out for him. Because in 1966, Auburn University in
Alabama was still plenty conservative with lots of redneck farm boys like me as
students there. That psychology professor was a “liberal” (that’s a lie) Yankee
and I discovered that plenty of psychology and sociology professors there at
Auburn were “liberal” Yankees. Over the years, in pondering why so many of them
just “happened” to be teaching at a redneck cow college in the Deep South, I
concluded that they came there with a serious mission of greatly changing our
way of thinking. (Auburn was Alabama’s land grant college, founded to train
people in agriculture/farming. Hence it was derisively referred to by many
people as a “cow college.”) The several “liberal” Yankee professors I studied
under, often complained about how they deplored living in such a “backward”
place, causing me to wonder why they choose to come there to teach. Why didn’t
they just stay home in Yankee land and teach in a “liberal” university where
they would be happy. The reason was that they went to schools like Auburn on an
important mission of changing lives, just as I am on a mission of changing
lives here in this distant, foreign land of Japan. And though those Yankee
professors complained of their living conditions in Alabama, they faithfully
stayed there working on their goal of “raising up” lowly creatures.
You
notice that I called “liberal” a lie, as it is used to mean “tolerant,
broad-minded, favoring reform or progress.” The true, basic meaning of the word
is to be generous. Nowadays, we use “liberal” and “conservative” to define 2
mindsets that are opposite. “Conservatives” generally favor leaving things as
God created them. “Liberals” favor rising up as high as possible, and changing
the human creature and God’s creation as much as possible by man’s power. Their
thinking and actions are strongly anti-God.
Oh,
that “anti-God” professor of mine worked ever so diligently to change us
students and to train us to make “God-like” decisions. Daily he would throw
that hypothetical question out to us, but everyone in class held quite firm.
“No, we would not turn over a 12-year-old girl to a space monster for him to
freely torture and abuse her, in order to end all other suffering in the
world.” So that sly Prof changed his tactics, making it easier for us to make
“God-like” decisions.
“Would
you allow that space creature to pull one hair out of her head in order to end
all suffering on earth?”
Now
that is quite different and not very painful at all. So a male student quickly
spoke up and assumed the role of God. “Yes.”
Whereupon,
the Prof questioned that student personally. “Two hairs?”
“You
said one.”
“I
know. But now I have upped the ante. Would you allow him to pull out 2 hairs?”
Hesitating
only briefly, that student replied, “Yes.”
“Would
you allow him to pull every hair out of her head?”
This
time the student hesitates longer, pondering how wonderful it would be to end
all the much suffering in the world. It would be plenty painful to the girl for
someone to pull out all her hair. But it would grow back in time. She would
recover and get over that traumatic experience. No harm done to her really. And
no one on earth would ever have to suffer any more. So let’s go for this
God-like “good” that we can do. Finally he answers, “Yes,” but somewhat
reluctantly this time, in regret for causing that much pain to an innocent
girl.
On
continuing to get a “Yes” answer, the Prof again ups the ante, of course. Again
addressing the same young man, he now asks, “Would you allow that monster to
break one of her arms?”
Now
the student hesitates a long time, pondering what he, as a god, should do. The
Prof doesn’t rush the student, but rather patiently waits because he is very
skilled at and diligent in his job of “raising” us up to be like gods. That is
a most important task to him. Plus, his fat salary is being paid for all the
time he lazily stands there waiting for an answer to this nonsense being
passed off as education. Finally the student answers, “No.” He will not go that
far in playing God.
“Oh
why not?” the Prof asks in a voice plenty sarcastic and deriding.
As
that student pondered his reply, I raised my hand because I had been boiling
over inside over the wickedness that Prof was carrying on. He recognized me and
I rapidly blurted out emphatically, “We don’t have the right to make those
decisions!” Most all those students felt that way in general. But likely they
were ashamed to come out and say it. I too was plenty shy about spitting it
out, because I knew the Prof would attack it. But I had gotten so fed up with
his sinful work that I could no longer keep quiet.
Likely
the Prof was glad to have me open up and admit that, so he could air it out
more. He gladly questioned me with a superior attitude in his voice. “Why is
that? Why don’t we have that right?” He was plenty derisive and sarcastic as he
asked me that.
At
that time, I didn’t really know why we didn’t have that right. Therefore
I was unable to defend my answer. I didn’t want him to ask me to explain it. I
just wanted him to believe me and accept my answer for the truth it was. I
flushed in embarrassment over him putting me on the spot, and replied something
very weak like, “We just don’t have that right.” The Prof then left me alone,
disappointed that I didn’t have the ability to parry with him about this.
But
Mr. Professor, I now very well know exactly why we do not have
the right to make such decisions. So I want to answer you (and the whole world)
now! “It is simply because God our Creator has not given us that right.
And when we seize such rights, as you were training us to do, it is the rebellious
sin of ‘rising’ up against our Creator.” Because I was a Christian when I was
in college, God’s Spirit within me made that sin repulsive to me. But because I
was then an immature Christian, I didn’t well understand why it was
repulsive.
I
may have bored you with this long account of that professor’s sinful work. But
I included all that to tell you something of dire importance to you. So
listen to me now! Most all education systems do that dirty, sinful,
devilish work on the fertile young minds of their students; diligently trying
to “raise” them up and make them into gods. That wicked brainwashing is
becoming more commonplace in education. It is becoming more intense, and it is
steadily moving down to younger students. It was practically non-existent in
the 12 grades of that country school in Alabama I attended from 1952 to 1964.
It didn’t attack me till I got to the university. But now it likely attacks
kindergarten children even more strongly than it attacked me in college.
Such
as that is what I oppose about education. I do not oppose
you parents teaching your children reading, writing, math, history, Bible, and
such (at home). But most of the public schools you send them to, train
them to be gods, just as that Prof at Auburn tried to do to me. Education
teaches them the “benefits,” to the expecting mother and our “over populated
planet,” of aborting unborn babies, therefore training them to approve of and
commit this act of murder. Education teaches them the “benefits” of euthanasia
and legal suicide, to train them to make these decisions that belong to God
only. Education banishes God and teaches the human creature to be the sole
authority of right and wrong. It also feeds the human creature all the
knowledge of good and evil possible, to empower him to become the greatest god
possible. Those areas of education are most anti-God. They are most
destructive to mankind. They are most sinful rebellion against our Creator.
Therefore it behooves us who know God to oppose them as vigorously as possible.
It also behooves us to quell our desire to rise and rather to desire to
decrease. “I must decrease.”
Educators
are well aware that they are training the minds of our future leaders in
all fields; political, medical, religious, etc. Therefore they have an important
goal of training those minds to make God-like decisions of killing unborn
babies, killing the old, feeble, diseased, and such people. They want to train
the students to play God by cloning animal and human life, and by doing many
other such things. Their goal is to train those young minds to take it upon
themselves to exercise God’s power and authority over God’s creation. Therefore
they are working ever so hard to turn the creature into the Creator. What
sinful rebellion this is!
Look
at what a tough spot present-day godly medical personnel often find themselves
in with all their great ability to give life or take life, alter the human body
that God created, etc. Great pressure is put on them to do that which is
displeasing to God. They would not be faced with those most difficult
decisions, had they not striven so to rise up and gain such great power.
Lawmakers (politicians) are perplexed for the same reason; having to make
difficult decisions about human life that God never ordained that men have to make.
The human creature certainly takes too much upon himself when he devours all
the knowledge of good and evil that he possibly can.
Think
seriously on what my psychology professor was doing, training us to be gods. Open
your eyes and look at the education system around you doing the same thing to
its students, all the way down to little children. Perhaps you also sat in
classrooms where such went on, wondering why you were paying expensive
university tuition only to have such stupid nonsense dumped on you. As a
parent, you may be wondering why you are paying your children’s expensive
tuition only to have that devilish trash dumped on them. If you were confused
as to why “fine” schools and universities carried on such worthless nonsense,
then by all means believe what I am now telling you. They are doing the
devil’s work of “raising” up people to be gods. “Professing
themselves to be wise, they became fools.” (Romans 1:22)
God
is highly displeased with Christians attending classes where that devil’s work
goes on. God’s Wrath hovers heavily over Christian parents who willingly send
their children into those classrooms to have the devil change them into a god,
and do his best to send them to Hell. Christian parents are duty bound to their
Creator to educate their own children in a way that pleases God. Once your
child reaches adulthood, if he or she desires to study the Bible in some Bible
college, it is a must that they attend one that truly honours God.
“Heavenly Father, please teach my Thy Pure Truth concerning what
Brother Richard has written on these previous few pages. I can’t simply take a person’s
word for it. I need God to confirm it to me. Please make me fully aware of all the
cunning ways educational systems strive to turn students into gods. Help me to
completely know just how displeasing that is to Thee. Please keep me from
attending any school that dishonours Thee. Also keep me from sending my
children to any school that dishonours Thee. Cause me to know what a heavy
responsibility I have toward Thee, to keep my children and myself out of the
devil’s classrooms so he cannot change us into the gods he wants us to be. I
pray this for all other Christians also. Amen.”
“The fool has said in his heart, There
is no God”
As
mankind strives to “rise,” somewhere along the way he will do away with the
True God, shutting our Creator out of society, declaring Him non-existent, etc.
A close look at history will likely reveal that all civilizations that rise up
to be great come to shut out God to a large extent. There is a most logical
reason for that. The two are just not compatible because man’s “rising” is
rebellion against God. If people practice God’s teachings in the Holy Bible, that
will prevent them from “rising” or at least be a great hindrance to them in
doing so. In order to plunge full steam ahead toward destruction, completely
unimpeded in his suicidal efforts to “rise,” man must first do away with his
Creator God; get Him out of the way. Therefore educators must exert maximum
efforts to keep their students away from the Bible, because any amount of Bible
knowledge in those students’ minds will greatly hinder those educators’
devilish work. Therefore great efforts are made to outlaw the Bible in public
schools. And many educators regularly ridicule the Bible with the goal of
making students ashamed of having anything to do with it and therefore voicing
arguments from the Bible in the classroom.
Look
at the U.S. government back in the 1960’s and 1970’s, banning prayer and Bible
from the public schools. They kicked God out of school and replaced Him with
humanism, which simply sets up humans as gods, recognizing no greater being,
nor greater power, nor greater authority, than that of the human creature. When
the schools shut God out, He immediately put a great curse upon them. And
we can readily see what destructive jungles public schools have since become.
Be advised that it will be impossible to correct the problems and to “better”
the schools to any significant degree at all as long as God is shut out. That
is because God, Whose Name is Jealous, has rejected and cursed those schools.
And no matter how high man “rises,” he can never get out from under that curse.
“Thou shalt surely die.” The solution is
for man to repent of his “rising” and to decrease. “I
must decrease.” May God help us all to desire to decrease.
Folks,
when man does away with his Creator God, it sure makes a big vacuum, doesn’t
it? It sure is helpful to have Someone around Who is All Powerful, All Knowing,
and Who is everywhere in the universe. I sure do love having that God around,
don’t you? AMEN! And when man decides to shut God out and do away with Him,
then man must look somewhere else for all the great help that God ordained that
He (God) be to man. And where does godless man go for that help? Why, he goes
to himself, of course. He sets himself up as God, and then goes all out in his
efforts to “rise” up and be as great and powerful as possible. Man certainly
needs an all-powerful God. So he does everything in his power to
become one. He diligently trains himself to have faith in himself as the
sum total of all things. “Rise. Rise! RISE!” And what does a godly person say
as he looks upon the awful, sinful mess of man “rising”? “I must decrease.” “He (The Lord Jesus Christ) must
increase, but I must decrease.”
“Heavenly Father, I now open my heart fully to Thee, for the
purpose of having Thee create within me a heart totally desirous to decrease.
Please teach me how to decrease. Show me Thy Divine Plan for my life, telling
me exactly what Thou hast ordained for me and what lowly estate Thou desirest
that I be in. Please reveal to me all the areas of my life in which I have
risen up higher than is pleasing to Thee, and help me to decrease in all those
areas to levels that are pleasing to Thee, my Creator. I confess that I do not
have the power within myself to correct these sins and problems in my life. So
I now open my heart to Thee, for Thee to come in and give me Thy Divine Help in
decreasing. I also pray that all other Christian believers will open up their
hearts to Thee, for the purpose of Thee helping them to decrease. Thank Thee,
Lord God, for hearing and answering this prayer of mine. Amen.”
Just
how well does the human creature do in competing with his Creator? Oh, he does
quite well. Just as God reveals His greatness to us on every page of His Holy
Bible, man also writes his book that contains nothing but accounts of man’s
greatness on every page of it. “The Guinness Book of Records.” Its sole purpose
is to proclaim the greatness of the human creature. And it sells really well,
doesn’t it? There have been some years when it has outsold God’s Holy Bible,
and I understand it is the only book that has ever done that. When that book
outsells the Bible, it is because the human race has become more interested in
its own greatness than in its Creator’s Greatness. Do I hear any AMENS to that?
Truly man has done well in his efforts and has risen ever so highly. Therefore
the greater his fall will be, when his Creator soon puts a stop to all his
rising. I pray that God will help you to decrease now. Would you please pray
that for me? “I must decrease.”
(This is the end of Chapter 2 of “Creature
Versus Creator.”)