CREATURE VERSUS CREATOR
Chapter Five
WORLD
VERSUS EARTH (PART II)
“The knowledge of good and evil”
I have already
said much more against “education” than you ever wanted to hear said against
it. But I am still far from finished with what I believe my Creator wants me to
say opposing it. So if you are tired of listening to what I have to say about
education, then go listen to most anyone else talk about it. Most people will
praise it to the highest heavens. Out of all the many sacred cows that the
human race sinfully worships and holds in high esteem, education is likely the
most sacred cow of them all. Just as the first “right things” (God and
His perfect creation) are most important for us to fully know and comprehend,
so are the first things that went wrong the most important ones for us to know
and comprehend. And the very first thing that went wrong with God’s created
human race was that it ate of the knowledge of good and evil.
Nothing empowers human beings, lifts them up, and makes them as gods, like that
of eating of the knowledge of good and evil. Because most all people want to be
as God, just as their grandmother Eve did, they love and hold “education” in
the highest esteem. People who love rising up to become a god, just naturally
love that which raises them up. And the knowledge of good and evil certainly
raises up human creatures.
Individuals,
communities, towns, cities, states, and nations fervently cherish education and
place it on the highest pedestal. Knowing its great power to raise up states
and nations, many of those governments make eating of the knowledge of good and
evil compulsory. You well know about such laws in your own nation. I am a
citizen of an earthly nation (the U.S.) that boasts of protecting the freedoms
of its citizens. But one freedom that the U.S. government robs its citizens of,
is that of obeying our Creator’s command forbidding us to eat of the knowledge
of good and evil. Nations set on rising typically make the eating of much
knowledge compulsory for its citizens. As soon as little children are old
enough to do just about anything, governments require them to start their
education and to continue it through the most formative years of their lives.
If parents keep their children from eating that knowledge, often the government
will take those children away from those parents, deeming such parents unfit to
rear children because those parents want their children to obey our Creator’s
first command to us. Such actions by governments are grossly wrong in the sight
of God. If you want to be deemed a bad citizen, just let it be known that you
oppose education in general and see how your fellow citizens regard that.
Secular
education trains up little children to be good citizens of the devil’s kingdom.
The prince and god of this world (the devil) goes all out to shut our Creator
God and His Holy Bible completely out of public education systems in order for
him (the devil) to gain complete control over those tender, formative minds
that sit in school for most of their waking day. Christian parents, if your
children being saved from this present evil world of darkness, wickedness, and
evil, is of any importance to you, then it is a must that you keep them out of
the sinful, wicked clutches of public education.
Though anyone
with the least amount of brains in their head can easily see all the massive
sin and evil inside most all education systems throughout the world, still so
few people will dare admit that there is anything basically wrong with
education itself. Instead, the majority of people throughout the world
(Christians included) tend to look on it as the savior or mankind. So many
Christians think it most terrible of me to call education the knowledge of good
and evil that God forbade the human race to eat of.
Before, I wrote
of the Christian man, a friend of mine, who told me that God’s command
forbidding eating of that tree, was a command given to Adam and Eve only. And
he said that after they were driven out of the Garden, that forbidden knowledge
of good and evil has never since been available for any human to eat of.
Therefore our Creator’s very first command to the human race (in Genesis 2:17),
has not been relevant to any human creatures since Adam and Eve were driven out
of the Garden of Eden, because no one since then has had the opportunity to
partake of the tree of knowledge of good and evil because it was that one tree
located in the Garden of Eden.
Now, he may be
right and I may be wrong. But I sure don’t think so. And if he is wrong, look
carefully at what he has done. Just as normal as his act of breathing air, he
has declared a lie to be the truth. Why can he so “calmly” commit the sin of
lying? Simply because he has risen up higher than God and God’s Truth. He
professes to be a saved, born again Christian, and I believe that he is. He is
a soul winner. I have gone “soul winning” with him and listened to him speak
(without error) of salvation in Christ to lost people. But in certain instances
where there is Truth that he doesn’t like, he denounces it as a lie and
replaces it with his own lie. He may do it because he is totally deceived and
believes his lie, but that still doesn’t change the nature of his lie.
I have observed
many Christians who have “risen” high above much of God’s Word in His Holy
Bible, and they manifest their “risen” status by denying God’s Word and
replacing it with their opinions that are lies and falsehood. That is what a
horrible thing that “rising” does to us. It truly makes us all into gods who
freely fabricate our own truth from the devil’s lies and deception, and that is
a most deplorable, sinful thing. “Professing themselves
to be wise, they became fools.” May God save each and every one of us
Christian believers from “rising” up above His Eternal Word that He has
magnified above His Great Name.
“Who
changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature
more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.” (Romans
1:25) The first creature that fallen humans choose to worship and serve, over
worshipping and serving their Creator God, is the creature of SELF. And to
commit that sin of serving Self instead of God, we must first commit the
sin of changing the Truth of God into a lie. This above verse is perfectly
clear about that. So think deeply on the tragedy of the truth in it. So many
people (Christians included) commit those sins just as normally as they
breathe. Because many Christians madly love how the knowledge of good and
evil raises them up and makes them into great gods, they relegate the sin of
eating of it to a sin that is not presently available for anyone to commit. Therefore
we are ever so piously right, justified, and innocent to devour all of it that
we can. May God open our eyes to see just how terribly sinful we are in these
matters.
“Heavenly
Father, please help me to totally submit myself to Thy Word, The Holy Bible.
Please help me to never deny any of its truths. Help me never to set my opinion
above it. Please save me from ever changing the Truth of God into a lie. Help
me not to make myself into my own god, but rather always submit to my Creator
and to Thy Eternal Word. Please save me from worshipping and serving myself.
Please help me to worship and serve my Creator God only. I pray that all other
people would also do right in these matters. Amen.”
In order to get
human lackeys highly qualified in building his kingdom, the devil exerts much
effort to ensure they are fed all the knowledge of good and evil that they can
possibly hold during their formative years of childhood and youth. While they
are feasting on that knowledge, the devil does all in his power to motivate
them to build his kingdom. You well know the extent of the motivation that
parents, teachers, society, government, and most of the human race give to
children and teenagers to do their best while getting an education and then to
go out into the “world” and rise up as high as they can. You have heard enough
of the motivation speeches to be familiar with their content and to know their
goal. The main goal of most all graduation speeches that “cap” a segment of
their education, is to motivate those graduates to go out and give it their ALL
in building the devil’s kingdom. Thus it naturally follows that each time a
speaker is chosen to give that annual speech, it is a must to choose the
“good” example of someone who has succeeded in rising highly in the “world.”
So, the famous car maker, Lee Iacocca, clinches his “excellent” motivation
speech at a high school graduation with, “Class of 19__, start your engines.”
On your mark, get set, GO AND BUILD THE DEVIL’S KINGDOM WITH ALL HASTE! You
only have one life to live, so make it count (for the devil).
I recall the
intense desire I had while I was growing up, to get grown and go out and do the
greatest good I could for mankind, as it was plain to see that mankind
certainly needed much help. I believe that God instills such desire into us
all, making it felt so strongly during our formative years. It is certainly an
honourable and noble desire and goal. But where we drastically go wrong, is in
the way we choose to accomplish that goal. There is only one proper way to
go about that goal; total and absolute obedience to God’s Holy Bible. That
alone, is the ONLY true help for ANY fallen human creature. By doing that,
we will set that example for others to do, and we will also verbally call upon
others to do the same in obedience to many commands in the Bible to preach it
and teach it to others.
But the father
of lies (the devil) is ever so skilled at deceiving us into believing that
building his kingdom is the proper way to better mankind. It is the old theory
of man pulling himself up by his own bootstraps. Upon rejecting God and His
Holy Bible, it is essentially the only help that Creator rejecting, fallen
humans have available to them. Therefore they sure make the best of it, giving
it maximum effort in building the devil’s kingdom. This is basically the
position of people called “liberals,” man helping (saving) mankind by man’s own
power. It is a road that goes straight away from God and straight to
destruction as fast as possible. May God keep us all from traveling that road.
“Heavenly
Father, please save me from all the devil’s deception. Please help me to fully
believe that there is absolutely no salvation for mankind in man building a better
“world” to live in. Please totally convince me that the only good I can
possibly do for a suffering, sinful human race is to personally obey Thy Holy
Bible. Please create in me a desire to follow Thee wholly, to fully believe all
the Bible and to obey all that the Bible commands me to do. I pray for all
other people to do right concerning these matters also. Amen.”
“First estate”
In Chapters 1,
2, & 3, as I repeatedly denounced the sin of “rising,” I also repeatedly
spoke of man “rising up” out of his “first estate.” I purposely did not
name that first estate till Chapter 4, wanting you (as you read the first 3
chapters) to guess at what the “first estate” was/is, if you did not already
know what it was. The “first estate” that our Creator ordained for us
human creatures is that of tilling the ground.
In Genesis
Chapter 1, God gives us record of Him creating this earth and everything on it,
including man. Then again, starting in Genesis 2:4, God gives a shorter summary
of that creation which contains some statements not given in Chapter 1 of
Genesis. Look at Genesis 2:5. “And every plant of the
field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew:
for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not
a man to till the ground.” At this point, the Lord God declares
something lacking in His creation, a being to till the ground. And even before
God creates that being to till the ground, He names the being; MAN.
Genesis 2:7
tells us just how God created man. Verse 8 tells of Him planting the garden and
putting man in it. I do not know if our Creator had to first till that soil
Himself, but the record is certainly clear that He did the planting. Thus it is
likely that the Lord God Himself was the very first Being to till the soil.
What a good and godly example for us human creatures to follow. Now look at
verse 15. “And the Lord God took the man, and put him
into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. Thus the Lord
God provides the tiller of the ground that He had declared missing (lacking)
back in verse 5. That God-provided tiller of the ground is you and I.
God created man a body, soul, and spirit. God created the human’s physical body
to need physical activity. And the physical activity He ordained for it is that
of tilling the ground. Most every present-day human creature experiences such
thoughts as the following, flowing through his head at sometime. “Why do I
exist?” “Why am I on the face of this earth?” “What am I here for?” “Why am I
cluttering up the face of this earth?” “What am I supposed to be living for?”
“What am I supposed to be doing with my life?” “What is the very best thing for
me to do with my life?” Well, the one right answer, to all those important
questions, is found in God’s Holy Bible in Genesis Chapters 2 and 3. You
were created by Almighty God for the purpose of tilling the ground. God created
YOU to supply the missing tiller of the ground. That is one main reason you
exist. Another main reason you exist is to glorify your Creator. And you
glorify Him greatly by tilling the soil. Otherwise, you will lazily do nothing,
or you will build the devil’s kingdom, which robs your Creator of much glory.
At the
beginning of the last paragraph, I mentioned Genesis 2:7, so let’s look at that
important verse now. “And the Lord God formed man of
the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and
man became a living soul.” People with just a little Bible knowledge
usually know what man is made of; “the dust of the ground.”
Your physical being is nothing more than dirt. And look at how well we
identify with dirt. Young and old alike, most people like to play in the sand
at the beach. And small children prefer playing in the dirt above most other
forms of play. If small children are outside in warm weather where loose dirt
is available to them, typically they will choose to play in it. It comes
natural to them because their Creator ordained it to come natural to them, and
because He created them from dirt. In bygone days, children who didn’t grow up
on farm dirt still often had a sandbox in the yard to play in. But presently,
masses of children are cursed by apartment style living with no sandbox and no
dirt available. Parents, one of the most beneficial things you can do for your
little children is to provide them dirt to play in. Next provide them dirt to
work in, tilling the ground to produce the food they must eat to live. And the
most beneficial physical thing we adults can do is to keep working in that
dirt, tilling the ground for our livelihood. Working and playing in dirt is
refreshing because we are dirt. So please put that important dirty fact
in your mental file cabinet and keep it there.
Godly, diligent
Christian parents are typically ever so keen to train up their children “spiritually”
by teaching them to obey God’s many commands in the Bible against sinning.
However, far too few Christian parents train up their children regarding what
they should do with their “physical” lives. Many Christian parents teach
their children to obey the 10 commandments (and several more commandments), but
regrettably fail to teach them from Genesis 2 & 3 what our God ordained
first estate is, and what God ordained that we physically do with our lives.
Christian parents are noted for leaving it completely up to their children to
decide what “career” in life they will choose to pursue, while obeying the 10
commandments (and possibly a few more). And Christian parents are certainly
noted for pushing their children to rise, and to pursue the most glamorous
career possible (which will add the most glory to the devil’s kingdom). What a
tragedy.
Christian
parents, if you succeed in training up your children in the way they should go,
it is of dire necessity that you teach them from Genesis 2 & 3 exactly what
their Creator ordained first estate is. You must exalt that first estate as
highly as you can before your children. And as they grow up, you must
constantly teach them that unless their Creator gives them clear and definite
leading in some other direction, then they should always first consider abiding
in this first estate. Along with teaching them about our first estate from
Genesis 2 & 3, consider sharing with them what I say about it in this book,
because with my Creator’s Help, I am doing my best to make these writings most
profitable for all. Please help me to do so, Lord, I pray.
“Heavenly
Father, please give me thorough understanding from Genesis 2:5 & 15 that Thou
created man to till the ground. And if that directly relates to me, please
confirm that to me. Please teach me all that is significant about me being
created from the dust of the ground. Please help me to perceive just how
beneficial it is to me to till the ground and to work in the dirt. Please help
me to fully understand how important it is to children for them to grow up
playing and working in the dirt. Please guide me clearly as to exactly what to
teach my children about man’s first estate. Help me to properly train up my
children regarding what they should physically do with their lives. All this
bitter medicine that Brother Richard is putting forth here sure is hard to
handle. So I ask Thee to guard me from anything He may be mistaken about and guide
me into Thy Perfect Will concerning these important matters. I also pray that
all other Christians and Christian parents will seek Thy Will and do Thy Will
in these matters. Amen.”
In
loving kindness, our Creator ordained the very best for all His
creatures. For that reason alone, we all should love the first
estate that He created for us. Tilling the ground is the most beneficial
lifestyle for the human creature’s body, mind, and spirit. That is because
it is what our Creator ordained for us and He would never ordain anything but
the best for us. Tilling the ground by man and animal power (without any noisy
machines, chemicals, etc.) is the most peaceful and serene life. It is lived in
harmony with nature, working during the day and resting during the night hours.
It is work that is done in harmony with the yearly seasons that God created,
planting in the spring, cultivating in the summer, harvesting in the summer and
fall, and closing up somewhat against the cold of winter. It gives a human
creature much God ordained pleasure to plant and grow crops, watching the
miracle of them growing, and then to harvest them. The several different farm
animals also bring us God ordained pleasures as we tend to those animals and
work them on the farm. When they are stubborn, they teach us patience and make
us appreciate the Patience our Creator has with our stubbornness. There is
different work to be done each season of the year and a vast variety of chores
to do each day. The many different jobs and chores of farm life is the God
ordained way of combating boredom in our daily work.
The tiller of
the ground works outside in the beauty of God’s nature. Viewing that natural
beauty of the plants, animals, and the earth’s terrain is a pleasure ordained
by God. It is manual work with much movement and much walking in the fresh air,
that God ordained to maintain our body’s health and strength. The walking is
done on God’s created dirt, and therefore can easily be done barefoot. That
massages the bare feet to maintain the body’s health. Presently, you can read
much about what man has learned regarding the massaging of the soles of the
feet and the palms of the hands to be healthy for the body. Our Creator
ordained that foot massaging be done as we walk barefoot on the ground. Also,
doing manual farm work with our hands massages them. Doing the manual labor of
farm work, one spends all day winding down, expending his day’s energy.
Therefore when the day’s labour is ended, he is content to sit on the porch,
listening to the music God provides from many animals, and then soon lie down
for his night’s rest.
Contrast that
to building the devil’s kingdom in a noisy, fast-paced (stress-filled) “world,”
in an artificial environment of man-made lighting and a man-made system of
piping in stale air to breathe inside closed buildings. In the office one is
normally trapped in a small cubicle doing the same routine every day. In the
factory, one typically sits or stands stationary doing one routine function in
assembly line style production all the time, enduring high noise levels, and
breathing toxic air that is often hot from the factory environment. Many jobs,
such as construction and factory jobs, are extremely dangerous because of job
accidents that kill and seriously injure. One is isolated from the beauty of
God’s nature and the change of the seasons, performing only one or just a few
minor functions in an overly confined space, which brings on stress and
boredom. One often has to do shift work, and the body’s health suffers, never
adjusting well to working at night & sleeping during the day because that
is perverse to what our Creator ordained for us. Many jobs in the “world” are
sedentary, damaging one’s health from lack of exercise. After being confined
all day, doing mentally stressful work and little or no physical labor, one
then needs to go “wind down” some way, by exercising (at best), or by partying,
consuming liquor, drugs, or by some such destructive means.
Of course, I am
well aware that all employed people do not work inside offices and factories.
Some of them do work outside in God’s nature. But you know there are plenty job
sites that are man-made, enclosed, confined spaces; many being noisy with foul
air to breathe and poor, artificial lighting. A lot of such job sites are plenty
harmful to the health of one’s body, soul, and spirit. I am also well aware
that accidents happen on an old fashioned farm that has no electricity,
self-powered machines, and such “dangerous” things. In the Old Testament, we
can read God’s instructions concerning a woodcutter’s ax flying off the handle
and killing the person it strikes (Deuteronomy 19:5), and concerning an ox
goring someone to death (Exodus 21:29). Still, an old fashioned farm (with no
dangerous, “powered” gadgets) is likely the safest job site that exists. (One
thing that increases its safety rating today is that it is likely the last job
site that would be targeted by terrorists.)
Also, I believe
that being content with our first estate would make us more or less content
with the things our Creator provided for us on top of the ground. The
entire Holy Bible covers over 4,000 years of man’s history on this earth. And I
do not recall any record in the Bible of man going deep into the depths of the
earth to mine that which God put there. No doubt he did some digging to get
gold, silver, iron, jewels, and such. But likely it was limited to very shallow
depths. Personally, I think it to be a pitiful lot that miners have, going deep
into the earth each day to spend their work day in the darkness and stale air
there, subject to the great dangers that exists in those depths.
Well, Brother
Richard, just why did God put all those riches down in the depths of the earth,
if not for us to use for our benefit? I do not rightly know. One reason could
be to give us a choice of leaving them there and being content without them.
Most of the things we mine from deep in the earth have absolutely nothing to do
with being obedient to our Creator’s command to till the ground. And the main
uses we make out of them are in building the devil’s kingdom.
Life in the
“world” is lived on the hardtop (concrete and asphalt) much of the time. You
can easily find much to read about how detrimental it is to feet, ankles, legs,
and knees, when we stand, walk, and run on hardtop. Falling on hardtop will
almost always injure one more severely than falling on the ground that God
created to catch us when we fall. Children naturally take many falls when they
play. And if they are on hardtop, the hurt is so much more than it would be if
they were playing on God’s earth. God created us from dirt to live on dirt.
He did not create us from concrete and asphalt to live on that hardtop.
May our Creator help us all to love what He ordained for us.
God did much of
His creating in sets of threes; “air, land, and water,” “body, soul, and
spirit,” and an infinite list. I perceive that He ordained 3 things to provide
pleasure for His human creature, one of them uncreated and 2 of them created by
Him. First and foremost, our Creator gives us untold pleasures
and we should always first and primarily seek pleasure from Him. As for the
other 2, I cannot rightly discern if one takes priority over the other. I will
list “God’s created nature” as 2nd because it sustains
our physical life. It is composed of the land, water, and air, and the plant
and animal life on this planet. Without those 5 things I listed there, our
human bodies could not live. So, “other people” comes in 3rd
in the list. And inside that group of people, by far, family members are to
take TOP priority in bringing us pleasure. Far more important are they, than
other people.
These
are the 3 primary things that your Creator ordained that you take pleasure in.
And you can best take pleasure in them by abiding in that first estate that
your Creator set up for you. The 72-hour workweek
that He ordained is a long one. But because He ordained manual labor to
strengthen our bodies, it leaves one’s mind free to meditate on one’s Creator,
sing praises to and pray to one’s Creator, and to fellowship and commune with
one’s Creator the entire time. Thus our Creator ordained it to be. Glory
to God for it! I love it! Many of the jobs in the devil’s kingdom require us to
give our minds to those jobs (to the devil). And that alienates our mind from
our Creator while we are doing those jobs for the devil (building his kingdom
and adding all the glory we can to it). Working in the devil’s kingdom takes
our mind off our Creator and to a large degree, blocks the daily pleasures He
ordained we receive by the ability to constantly be in touch with Him in that
first estate.
Second, most
jobs in the devil’s kingdom remove us from God’s prison farm of beautiful,
peaceful, serene God created nature, and puts us into the devil’s noisy, foul
air prison of concrete, asphalt, steel, aluminum, chrome, glass, plastic, fiber
glass, asbestos, plaster, hardware, software, audio, video, computers, hi tech
junk, and an unending list of devil made junk that has absolutely no ability to
bring any true pleasure to the human creature’s body, soul, and spirit.
Instead, his junky prison brings boredom, stress, and destruction to the human
creature. How stupid we human creatures are when it comes to choosing which
prison we want to serve our life sentence in, God’s prison or the devil’s
prison.
And thirdly,
working in the devil’s kingdom keeps many people separated from most (or all)
other family members for most of their waking day. Therefore we do not receive
the pleasures from them that God ordained. And furthermore, because living
one’s daily life separated from other family members brings on separation,
divorce, broken homes, and such; that certainly destroys the pleasures God
ordained we receive from family. So please keep these 3 God ordained pleasures
in mind and cry out to your Creator to help you to totally hate the devil’s
world which so completely destroys these genuine pleasures in the lives of the
poor, miserable human creatures imprisoned in the devil’s kingdom.
“Heavenly
Father, if Brother Richard is right about these 3 pleasures Thou hast ordained
for me, then please confirm that to me. And then help me to truly hate the
devil’s kingdom that destroys these God given pleasures. And help me to truly
love the first estate that Thou didst create for me and help me to desire to be
in it to enjoy the greatest pleasures possible in this life. Open my eyes to
clearly see just how miserable people actually are as they work and live in the
devil’s kingdom. And please save me from that misery. I also pray for all other
people to come to a full knowledge and understanding of these things I have
prayed about. I pray that other people also be saved from living in the prison
of the devil’s kingdom. Amen.”
“Cursed is the ground for thy sake”
Upon being
created, Adam was put into the Garden of Eden to keep and dress it. While in
his perfect state, that Creator ordained occupation brought absolutely no
discomfort to Adam. But when Adam and Eve sinned, that ended their life of
perfect ease. “And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast
hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I
commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for
thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the
herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,
till thou return unto the ground; for out of it was thou taken: for dust thou
art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” (Genesis 3:17~19)
Adam and Eve
became sinners/criminals by transgressing God’s one law that He had given to
them. Therefore our just God immediately meted out a life’s sentence of
punishment to them. No longer will mankind dress and keep the ground with no
discomfort to them. Now their Creator curses the ground that is to be their
livelihood. “In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the
days of thy life.” Upon reading my first edition of this book, several
Christian friends who had grown up on the farm complained to me that farm life
was one of drudgery and sorrow. Some of them didn’t use those exact words. But
those 2 words certainly fit the descriptions they gave me of the farm work they
did growing up. They hit the nail right square on the head with their
assessment of farm life. Their assessment of it is just what our Creator
ordained it to be for disobedient, fallen mankind.
We
are ever so prone to think too highly of ourselves.
The human race became sinners by disobeying our Creator. All too often, too
vague an image forms in our minds when we hear the words “sin” and “sinners,”
and we tend to relegate the meaning of those words to be anything that anyone
wants them to be (and also tend to think those 2 words apply to others much
more than to us). Such thinking is in error, as the Bible clearly defines both
words for us. But along with those 2 words, we can also use the words “crime”
and “criminals,” which form a clearer image on our minds when we hear
them. Adam and Eve (and all of their descendents) became criminals in their
Creator’s Sight when that first pair of humans committed the crime of
disobeying God’s Law. It was only proper that God mete out punishment for that
crime. And the punishment, which He did mete out, is most just and fair.
Therefore none of us criminals/sinners has any justifiable grounds at all for
finding any fault with that punishment from our Just and Righteous Creator.
“Heavenly
Father, please help me to fully acknowledge and accept the fact that I am a
sinner in Thy Sight. Please give me understanding as to exactly how the
punishment that Thou didst mete out to Adam and Eve in Genesis Chapter 3
presently applies to me. Regarding this punishment that Thou has ordained for
me during this short life of mine here on this earth, please help me to
understand and acknowledge that it is completely just, that Thou hast dealt it
out in love, and that it is the most beneficial thing for me, a fallen,
degenerate human creature. Please help me to completely accept this punishment
from Thee, and not to try to escape from it. I pray these things for all other
people also. Have mercy on us and help all us guilty criminals, dear Lord, I
pray. Amen.”
“Cursed
is the ground.” What a step-down from that perfect environment
in the Garden. Now, “in sorrow,” will man eat of
the ground all of the days of his life, fighting the thorns and thistles that
are a part of that curse. Now, in the sweat of his face, will man toil and
labor to produce his food from the ground. This is our sentence to be served
out in the “prison” of the farm. And this just punishment is very close to
being solitary confinement in that each family stays confined on their
own farm, with minimal interaction with other people.
That
situation of each family being confined on their individual farm will do the
most to hamper the spread of sin by a degenerate human race.
Thus, our Creator ordained that it be. That is a most important fact, so please
keep it in mind. “Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil.” (Exodus 23:2) You well know how
rapidly sin spreads when people mass together. When sinful people group
together, they just naturally do what sinners are prone to do, commit
sin. Even when Christian believers are grouped together a lot, they quickly
tend to become loose in their speech among themselves and their tongues commit
lots of sins, even if no other parts of their bodies do wrong.
You can readily
observe rampant sin throughout the societies in most every nation on earth, as
people group together to build the devil’s kingdom and then group together to
eat, drink, play, and be merry when the day’s work is done. “They encourage themselves in an evil matter.” (Psalms
64:5) Without fail, we sinners/criminals will do exactly that most any time we
mix together very much at all. The more that degenerate humans mingle and
associate with each other, the more sin will abound as groups of sinners naturally
encourage each other to sin for all the fun, pleasure, and excitement they
get out of it. Observing others committing sin naturally erases one’s fear of
God and of sinning against the Holy One. Habitually mingling with crowds of
sinners/criminals and observing their sinful acts emboldens and encourages one
to yield to committing sin. This is especially true of children and young
people whose minds are so shaped by what they frequently observe; hence the
importance of both parents rearing their children at home on the farm, as our
Creator ordained.
The apex of
this scale, of following a multitude to do evil, is the mob. When a
group of people gets stirred up into mob frenzy, they take on a mob mentality
of no individual responsibility and easily become an awful force that destroys
property, and injures and kills people. Then when their destructive work has
run its course, they shrug their shoulders in innocence saying, “The mob did
it.” (Of course, the Judge of the Universe accurately records each sinner’s
sinful act, no matter how large a mob action it may be a part of. And when each
individual sinner stands in fear before this Holy Judge to receive a just
punishment for his sins and crimes, then there will be no cohorts to
stand with him and encourage or help him at all.) May God help us to fear Him
NOW and always do right. And may He help us to truly acknowledge that the life
sentence He gave us of manual labor on a prison farm is just and appropriate
for us sinners/criminals.
Therefore our
Creator in His Perfect Wisdom imprisoned degenerate sinners/criminals in solitary
confinement on their individual farms. People are least prone to sin in
the presence of their family members. Please read me clearly on that. I did
not say they would not sin when the rest of their family can see it. I am
asserting that they are least likely to sin with their family watching.
Therefore God isolated each family on individual farms to live their lives
together as a family (rarely separated from the rest of their family members). That
fact alone, restrains the spread of sin like nothing else will. Our Wise
Creator did not ordain that we criminals live our lives out in the “world” (the
devil’s kingdom), spending most of our waking day separated from all other
family members, and freely mingling with a host of other sinners/criminals,
many of them being strangers to whom we tend to feel absolutely no
accountability for our conduct and actions carried on in their presence and/or
with them.
The
more fleeting our contacts with others, the more the tendency we have to commit
sin with others and then simply forget it (lightly
brush it off), when we part from their presence. Living in the devil’s
kingdom and earning one’s living there, results in a life on the road for many
people. And the jukebox songs are full of stories about the many sins committed
by people who are constantly on the move, living their life on the go, living
on the road. The pace of life in the devil’s kingdom steadily increases,
definitely causing sin to increasingly abound as we have more brief, fleeting,
casual contacts with more people. What a vivid contrast to the lifestyle of all
family members living together all the time on a farm, annually producing their
livelihood at essentially the same pace year in and year out. Glory to God for
this wonderful “first estate” that He ordained for us!
“Cursed
is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of
thy life…In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return
unto the ground.” (Genesis 3:17&19) Our Creator God
made it completely clear that the punishment that He meted out to criminal Adam
was a life sentence, and that his physical death was to be the only thing that
would bring an end to this prison sentence. At that time, a human being had
never been born. Only two humans were in existence, each of them being
directly created by God, and created as adults. At that time, Adam was the only
human male in existence, and in his loins were the seed of the entire human
race. Therefore, when his Creator and Judge gave him a life sentence of
hard, manual labor in solitary confinement in a “prison” of a farm, that was
a sentence meted out to the entire human race of sinners/criminals.
This is a most important fact for you to know and to believe.
“And
the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again
curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is
evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as
I have done.” (Genesis 8:21) God spoke this after Noah and
family exited the ark after the floodwaters abated. I cannot discern if He
removed the curse He put upon the ground in Genesis 3:17, or if He is saying
that He will not now curse the ground once more in addition to that first curse
He put upon it in Genesis 3:17. Either way, it does not change the fact that He
ordained that man till the ground all the days of his life to earn his bread.
And I know from years of experience in tilling the ground, that the thorns and
thistles are still there, and that much sweat drops from my brow (and most all
my body below my brow) as I till the ground. Therefore it appears to me that
some curse is still upon the ground.
“Heavenly
Father, if it is true that the punishment, that Thou didst mete out to Adam in
Genesis Chapter 3, applies to me just as much as it did to Adam, then please
teach me that. Please give me a complete understanding of that punishment. Help
me to totally submit myself to it, and to serve out this life sentence in
obedience to Thee. I pray that all other people will also do right concerning
this punishment that Thou didst mete out to the fallen human race. Amen.”
“Six
days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work.” (Exodus 20:9)
God clearly ordained that this sentence of manual labor be for 6 days each
week. Also, Christ’s parable in Matthew Chapter 20 sets the workday at 12
hours, as He tells about the householder who went out “early” in the
morning and hired labourers. Then again at the third, sixth, ninth, and even
the eleventh hour, he went out and hired workers. At the end of the day,
he paid each and every one of them a day’s wage. And upon doing so, he got
complaints from the ones he hired earlier in the day, because the last ones
hired only worked for one hour. (Matthew 20:12) That shows the workday
to be 12 hours long. Six days a week for 12 hours per day equals
a 72-hour workweek of hard, manual labor, confined to the family’s
solitary farm/prison. Such a workweek (in sorrow)
does not leave time to spend in town, eating, drinking, playing, being merry, and
sinning. Thus our Creator ordained it to be so. Man was not to live his
short life on earth out building the devil’s kingdom and sinning in the devil’s
“world.” God sentenced him to work 72 hours a week tilling the ground and
taking off one day each week for rest.
Of course, we
sinners/criminals sure do not like that sentence. And the devil’s kingdom
certainly offers us better deals. You know how that the workweek has gotten
shorter and shorter down through the years, so that it is now 40 hours, or
fewer, per week for many laborers throughout the world. And some people, who
strain their brains to the fullest working at “get rich” schemes, achieve great
riches by working just a very few hours per week. That leaves them plenty of
time to enjoy much fun, fame, and fortune out in the devil’s kingdom, and
thereby send them and their family speeding toward their destruction at the
fastest rate possible.
And of course,
the more knowledge of good and evil we devour, the lighter we can make our
workload by inventing machines to do our work for us, to provide cooling from
the heat, to provide heating from the cold, and a never-ending list too long to
write here. Therefore to thwart our Creator’s life sentence of 72 hour
workweeks of hard, manual labor in solitary confinement, we consume all the
knowledge of good and evil possible to shorten our work time, lighten the load,
and give us much better pay (more mammon). Therefore we will have plenty of
time to spend out in the devil’s kingdom sinning, and will have the means
(mammon) with which to buy that sin. How skilled we rebels become at destroying
ourselves so completely, when we set our minds on doing so.
“For thy sake”
Please think
long and hard on 3 most important words found in this punishment decree. “Cursed is the ground FOR THY SAKE.” This
harsh, strict, solitary, life sentence of hard labor is completely for our
benefit. It does the most to oppress and restrict sin and to keep
eternal human souls out of an eternal Hell of fire and brimstone. Most all
governments in the world confine criminals to restrict their criminal activity.
I believe that is a wise thing for governments to do for the safety of its
citizens, and likely you believe that too. I also think it was most wise for
our Creator to give us humans a life sentence of hard, farm labor and I fully
believe Him when He said that He did it for our sakes. Our Loving God DID NOT
pass that harsh sentence on us out of hatred for us sinners/criminals. He did
it in loving grace, compassion, and mercy for our safety, benefit, and
salvation. Therefore I find absolutely no fault in that sentence and I know
without any doubt that it is for my sake that my Creator passed this sentence
upon me. I think it is also most important for you to regard that sentence in
the exact same way.
“Lord
Jesus, please help me to totally trust Thee. Help me to fully believe that Thou
didst curse the ground for my sake and didst give me a life sentence of
hard labor for my benefit. Please help me to completely comprehend just
how much it stifles the spread of sin for families to live on their individual
farms, toiling in farm labor to produce their livelihood. Please create within
me a heart that accepts this as the very best thing for me to do with my life
on this earth, because it is what Thou hast ordained for me, for my sake.
Please help me to come to love and cherish this lifestyle that Thou hast
ordained for Thy fallen human creatures. I pray that all other people will also
come to a good understanding of this God ordained lifestyle being for their
sake and benefit, and that they will honour their Creator by holding it in the
highest esteem. Amen.”
“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread”
What is the
foremost thought on the minds of most all prisoners locked away in prison? “I WANT
OUTTA HERE!” So the foremost thought of most of us sinner/criminal, fallen
human creatures is that of escaping the prison farm in which our Creator put
us. This prison is not locked up. One can walk out of it of his own free will.
Most people choose to do just that. And to justify that prison break, the human
race has fabricated a lie that tends to be regarded as truth by most all people
throughout the world. The version of it will vary somewhat here and there. But,
in general, it is the false theory that God created only a most base and
primitive setting of only the scantest necessities to maintain human life. And
that when God turned Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden into that
primitive, newly created earth, it was God’s Will, Plan, and Desire for them to
give it maximum effort in “progressing” and improving upon those bare basics
that God created for them.
What I believe
concerning this is that God imparted to Adam and Eve the wisdom needed to till
the ground and produce food and clothing from it, care for “farm” animals, kill
and slaughter animals to use for food and clothing; and the wisdom to make
simple hand tools, animal drawn plows, and such for doing farm labor. I believe
God gave them the wisdom to make simple abodes such as tents and likely houses
also. Apparently the elements of the weather did not become harsh until after
the flood. Then, men would use God-given wisdom to build shelter from the harsh
elements of rain, snow, and cold, and to use fire for heat. I believe that the
wisdom man uses to do such things as I just mentioned is not a part of the
knowledge of good and evil that God forbids us to eat of.
Evolutionist
liars delight in painting the bleakest pictures of the early history of mankind
as cave dwellers with ape-like intelligence, and thereby try to deceive you
into believing that the human race has always had to exert the maximum efforts
possible toward “progressing” in order to come to where we presently are now
from ape-like cavemen who conversed only in grunts and clubbed women in the
head and dragged them by their hair into the men’s cave. (What a long
sentence!) Hogwash to their devilish, deceiving lies! God’s human race
started out just exactly as God’s Holy Bible tells us it did in Genesis 1~3,
with the first two humans living in a perfect environment and possessing
perfect intelligence and wisdom, and therefore living on a far higher plateau
than any humans have lived on this earth since Genesis Chapter 3. And after
Genesis 3, the people who followed their Creator God lived a most fine and
plenty comfortable life. Sure, many of them were tent dwellers. But God blessed
them with all the necessities of life and a head full of His Wisdom and
Intelligence. I will not dispute the theory of there having been plenty of
blockheaded, dense-minded, grunting cave dwellers back in ancient history. But
they got that way by forsaking their Creator; thereby having their foolish
heart darkened, and thereby chose the darkness of caves with a little glow from
a fire. It is easy for me to believe that there was such primitive savages
then, because there are a lot of such people on this earth now. But nowadays,
instead of dwelling in dark caves, these foolish, darkened hearts walk around
puffing smoke from a cancerous fire stick stuck in their mouth, and grunting
into a cell phone jammed against their ear. Or they sit in a dark room grunting
at the glow of a TV, video, or computer screen, living such an abnormal and
darkened life for the same reason the cave dwellers did; they have forsaken their
Creator and thereby their foolish heart has become darkened. Likely those
ancient cave dwellers dressed more neatly and had fewer gross tattoos and fewer
body piercings than these modern-day, foolish, darkened hearts have. None of
the cave men had spiked orange, or green, or purple hair like these modern-day
savages have. If these present-day foolish, darkened hearts continue to
“regress,” likely they will soon start sprouting Darwinian monkey tails. All
down through the ages, foolish human creatures have lived in darkness for only
one reason; they willingly chose to forsake their Creator to go their own way
to destruction. Obeying our Creator’s command to till the ground does NOT make
primitive savages out of fallen human creatures, but forsaking our Creator
certainly does. Living in little, concrete cubicles in high-rise apartment
buildings in big, modern cities does not prevent fallen human creatures from
becoming primitive savages. While grunting as they stare at all kinds of
glowing screens inside these small, darkened, concrete cubicles, modern day
savages habitually commit savage acts so grossly base and primitive that they
would make any ancient ape-like cave dweller blush with shame. Building modern,
glorious kingdoms for the devil does not keep fallen human creatures from
becoming primitive savages. Obeying our Creator does! So put that in your fire
stick and puff on it, you modern-day primitive savages who disdain your Creator
ordained first estate. (My, what a long paragraph! I’m doing what my English
teachers taught me, one thought per paragraph. Me thinks me think too long per
thought. I sure do hope it is easier for you to read this than it is for me to
write it.)
I do not
believe that very much of what we all label as “progress” is God’s Will for us,
nor do I believe it is pleasing to Him. Rather I believe that most all of what
we call “progress” is the human creature rebelling against His Creator. If I
happen to be right about that, then that is a most important fact for all of us
to live by. “Human progress” is a broad enough term to encompass some things
that are good. Simply working diligently enough to always have a sufficient
supply of food, clothing, and shelter for our family and a little left over to
give to misfortunate people, is considered to fall in the realm of “progress”
by some people. However, the vast majority of things that most people deem
to be “progress” by the human race fall inside 2 rebellious, sinful acts
against our Creator God. (1) Rising up out of our God ordained estate. (2)
Building the devil’s kingdom.
“Heavenly
Father, please teach me the true nature of “progress” of the human race. Was it
Thy Plan and Thy Will that people and nations rise up to the greatness than we
have risen up to? Or, is what we deem to be “progress” nothing more than
rebelling against Thee, by rising up out of our first estate and by building
the devil’s kingdom. Please teach me Thy Perfect Truth concerning these
important things. Please show me exactly what attitude I should have toward “progress”
of the human race. I pray for all other people to also come to a perfect
knowledge of these things. Teach us all, Lord, I pray. Amen.”
“Having food and raiment let us therewith be content”
But Oscar Wilde
proudly proclaimed: “Discontent is the first step in the progress of a
man or a nation.” Because our Creator commands us to be content with food and
raiment, that sure doesn’t leave us much to be discontent with. But Mr. Wilde
asserts that discontent is the first step in the progress
of a man or nation. Thus he clearly connects “progress” with
rebellion against our Creator’s command to be content with the bare
necessities. (How well we tend to state our positions.) And human creatures,
that disdain their prison sentence on the farm and have no desire to be content
with food and raiment, set themselves on “progressing” beyond that,
thereby rebelling against their Creator. One can find much better deals out in
the devil’s kingdom. Also, it is most easy for fallen, degenerate
sinner/criminal human creatures to be plenty discontent with a 72-hour workweek
of manual labor among thorns and thistles, sweating under a hot sun. Thus
starts a mass escape from our Creator’s prison farm.
When the
serpent told Eve that she and Adam would become as gods if they disobeyed their
Creator, that chance to “rise” caused enough discontentment with her perfect
state to cause her to disobey God. Discontentment, with the
first estate that our Creator assigned to us fallen human creatures in Genesis
3, is also what causes us to rebel against that first estate and causes us to
rise up and “progress” out of it. “Discontent is the first step in the progress
of a man or of a nation.” Amen, Mr. Wilde! You state the facts ever so
accurately. The history of mankind is one of continually searching for a better
way of doing things. “Don’t be content with the way things are. Make them better.”
We hear much such speech from the “movers and shakers” as they use every means
imaginable to motivate people to build the greatest kingdoms possible for the
devil. That discontent has raised us up to the unbelievable heights we have
achieved, and it has brought most of the monumental destruction and danger that
is ever present with us in this modern world.
“But
godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this
world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment
let us be therewith content.” (I Timothy 6:6~8)
“Heavenly
Father, please help me to be obedient to Thy command to be content with food
and clothing. Please reveal to me how that I, and many other people also, have
become discontent with the things of life that Thou didst ordain for us, and
how that we have come to love the world and the many lures and attractions of
the world. Help me to truly believe that godliness with contentment is great
gain. Please help me to ever be mindful that we brought nothing into this world
and it is certain that we can carry nothing out. I thank Thee for Thy
graciousness in so abundantly providing my needs according to Thy riches in
glory. Help me to always thank and praise Thee for Thine abundant blessings and
to be ever so diligent to guard against letting Satan make me discontent with
this wonderful life Thou hast blessed me with. I pray that all other people will
also do right in these matters. Amen.”
“They are all gone out of the way”
You can study
history to see how that, down through the ages; the human race throughout the
world has left the farm to go to town, the city, Sodom and Gomorrah. Likely you
can easily find statistics that tell how few farmers remain in your nation.
Presently (2,003), something like 2% of the population of Babylon U.S.A. are
farmers. Thus my nation has been splendidly successful in escaping God’s prison
farm and also shockingly astonishingly successful in building one of the most
powerful and highly risen kingdoms of the devil that this planet earth has ever
known. The 2 go together, of course, escaping God’s prison farm and building
the devil’s kingdom. It is essential to have human lackeys in the towns,
cities, and Sodoms and Gomorrahs to build the devil’s kingdoms.
And where does
the devil get those lackeys? There is only one place for him to get them; from
the prison farms where God incarcerated those sinners/criminals at the start of
their criminal rebellion. And because the vast majority of fallen human
creatures just madly love the world and therefore love building the devil’s
kingdom; individuals, communities, towns, cities, states, and nations exert
maximum efforts to set people free from God’s prison farms and firmly establish
them in the “freedom” of the devil’s kingdom. And the most efficient way to do
that is to “educate” their children (feed them the knowledge of good and evil).
And the most efficient way to do that is to “force feed them” by making
“education” compulsory, thereby making criminals out of godly parents who
oppose the sin of having their children fed the knowledge of good and evil.
I was born in
1946 and grew up a barefooted farm boy in rural Alabama, USA. I started doing
light and simple farm chores when I was about 4 years old, bringing in stove
wood for the wood burning kitchen cook stove, picking and shelling peas, and
such. I still recall the first time I worked a team of horses. It was the
spring of 1952, just after I had turned 6 years old and even before I started
school, as I entered the first grade in September of 1952. Growing up, I rode
the school bus home each day immediately after classes ended. Arriving home
about 3:30 PM, I then did the farm work Daddy assigned us children and we
usually worked each afternoon after school, till about dark. We children did
farm work on Saturdays during the school year, and we worked six days a week
for all of the 3-month summer vacation we had from school. We never worked on
Sundays, except for the necessary feeding of the farm animals, milking cows,
bringing in firewood, and such. Also, we occasionally had other days off. In
high school, I wanted to go out for the school football team and possibly the
baseball team. But I wasn’t allowed to do so because my help was needed to
produce our needs on God’s prison farm.
Daddy first
bought a farm tractor when I was 12 or 13 years old. Until then, we farmed with
horses only, and still continued to use horses after buying the tractor. I
worked horses the whole time I was in elementary school, starting “horse work”
just before I started school work. As small children, we boys couldn’t handle
the heavy plows of course, so Daddy had to do all the heavy plowing. I would do
top harrowing and dragging just before planting. My older brother & I would
team up to work the horse drawn planter, alternating between holding up the
heavy planter and holding the light lines to guide the horse. Paired up like
that, we walked that horse-drawn planter up and down the straight furrows Daddy
had just made with the horse-drawn fertilizer distributor that put out a small
stream of fertilizer into the furrow just made by the small plow in front of
where the fertilizer streamed down. Other “horse work” I did included driving
the team as they pulled the wagon or sled, the stalk cutter, and the hay rake.
(I also did a lot of “horse play” by riding our horses just about every chance
I got.)
I spent many
long boyhood hours chopping, hoeing, and picking cotton, hoeing and harvesting
the many vegetables we grew to eat and to sell, and also harvesting the other
crops. There was always water to be fetched from the outside well, firewood to
be cut & brought in, farm animals to be fed and attended to, cows to be
milked, and many assorted farm chores to be done. Whenever there was a little
free time, I would usually head to a creek or pond to fish and/or swim in hot
weather, and to the woods or fields to hunt in cold weather. We always went to
church both Sunday morning and night. Daddy never allowed us to fish or hunt on
Sunday afternoons, but he did allow us to go swimming. We often did that in the
summer, and often played football or softball on Sunday afternoons in the
hayfield or cow pasture with neighborhood boys when it wasn’t summer.
Along with 12
years of schooling, my life consisted mainly of the above-mentioned things from
the time I was 4 years old till I graduated from high school in 1964 at the age
of 18. I daily did manual farm work on a “family farm” all those years. And any
time that the weather was warm enough, I always went barefoot on the farm
except in the few instances when shoes were needed to protect my feet from
sharp stubble in the hayfield, briars, or such. How I loved the life of a
barefooted farm boy, and how fleet footed were those bare feet! Very few of my
boyhood days did I have a bicycle. I walked and ran most everywhere I went
nearby. The number of times I picked briars out of those bare feet with a
sewing needle and the number of other various wounds those bare feet received
while I was growing up is uncountable. (When I get to Heaven, I want to ask my
Creator how many times I picked my feet up from and put them down into that
Alabama farm dirt.)
At the time I
grew up in that rural setting, many families who lived out of town in the
country were such farming families. And their children, both boys and
girls, were required to do regular, manual farm work. But by the mid-1960’s, I
had witnessed the farming family that farmed with animal power (horses and
mules), completely vanish from the scene. During the 1950’s and early 1960’s,
one by one, the farmers bought tractors & replaced animal power with
machines. About the late 1950’s, farmers started using strong chemicals that
pollute God’s creation to kill the grass in the fields, eliminating the long
hours required to hoe and chop that grass. More efficient mechanized farm
equipment, such as cotton pickers and corn pullers replaced the manual labor
previously needed for those jobs. Larger tractors drastically cut down the time
needed to break, disk, plant, and cultivate the land. I watched the family farm
just about completely vanish around the time I finished high school at age 18.
Children who had to regularly do the farm work I described above on a family
farm just about became extinct in that locale in 1964, 65, and 66. They didn’t
completely vanish, but they just about completely did. Someone’s (the devil’s?)
timing was perfect. Because my generation of farm boys and girls were doing an
excellent job of escaping God’s prison farm, and disappearing into the devil’s
kingdom. We were the last generation of boys and girls around there to
experience old fashioned farming without tractors, but rather with horses and
mules. We were a passing era. And most of us, and our descendents, would never
again do much tilling of the ground. “They are all gone
out of the way.” (Romans 3:12)
My Creator
purposely created me to be there and to be 18 years old at that important
pivotal time; because that change I observed taking place then and there
greatly aids me in writing what God wants written in this book. A distinct mood
seemed to prevail in the air that the small, family farm was certainly nothing
to be content with. Rather it was something to be escaped from. (Yes, English
teachers, I know all my participles are dangling there, but that still seems to
be the best way to say it with.) That mood was spoken about enough,
especially in education circles. But it also seemed to be an unspoken “thing”
that any sensible person should just naturally perceive and understand. “By any
and all means, let us escape this old fashioned farm life of drudgery and
sorrow.”
In school, we
had the 4-H Club and the FFA (Future Farmers of America) that promoted farming
to us students. The FHA (Future Homemakers of America) for girl students,
somewhat promoted the farm family. There were very active (and helpful)
government programs for aiding farmers in various ways. But there also
definitely existed this mindset that believed the family farm was something to
be escaped from. And I personally witnessed firsthand how well that mindset
accomplished its mission in the 1950’s and early 1960’s, as almost none of us
farm boys and girls reaching adulthood in the mid-1960’s continued family
farming. Rather we sought employment (a human master) or acceptance to a
college or university (more knowledge of good and evil). “They are all gone out of the way.”
“Someone must
till the ground.” That mindset had been plenty important to most godly people
(and also lots of ungodly people) down through the ages, till into the 20th
century. It stemmed from Creator given “natural” wisdom that tells us we must
produce food to eat or we will starve to death. It also stemmed from our
Creator’s Mind in Genesis 2:5 when He said, “There was
not a man to till the ground.” That mindset was much prevalent in my
Daddy’s generation. (He was born in 1917 and farmed most all his life till he
died in 2,003.) I saw that mindset get just about completely destroyed in the
minds of my generation of farm boys and girls in the middle of the 20th
century. As we all fled the family farm to the devil’s kingdom to labor there
in building it (and to rise as high as we possibly could), we generally took
this attitude toward growing food (farming); “Someone else will do it.”
As that little
country school gave us the best education possible to help us rural people pull
ourselves up by our own bootstraps, that definitely made us discontent with
family farming. We were openly trained in school to shoot for something better,
something higher; employment, college, the university. That little red
schoolhouse definitely trained us in jail breaking; breaking out of God’s prison
farm. In 1985, I heard a news report in the U.S., which stated that farming was
the least favored occupation by high school students then considering choosing
their careers. (Likely that had been the mindset of high school kids in the
U.S. for many years before 1985.) The god of this world had done his work well,
making them so discontent with their Creator ordained first estate and so
desirous to escape from it. And that ol’ devil is always eagerly waiting just
outside God’s prison farms, to take those young souls into his clutches inside
his kingdom. “They are all gone out of the way.” (Yes,
the ground is still being tilled and we are all still eating. But such a small
percentage of the population growing food will not always continue to work, and
I will explain more about that later.)
Why is it so
easy to be discontent with our first estate? I have already discussed the most
apparent reasons; hard, manual labor amidst thorns and thistles sweating under
a hot sun 72 hours a week, to produce only the basics, food, clothing, and
shelter. But a more important reason is likely not so apparent. There is no
“glory” in it for us. All the glory goes to our Creator. And all that comes
our way is an intense humbling and a making of us into the most lowly
creatures. As I exalted “decreasing” in the first 3 chapters, I repeatedly
spoke of how great a virtue humility is. And the God ordained way for us to
be humble is for us to stay in our first estate.
All the “glory”
for us in this life is out there in the devil’s kingdom. And the tempter
does his best to make us constantly keep our eyes on that glory, just as he got
Eve to look at all the potential that forbidden fruit contained. “And when the woman SAW that the tree was good for food, and
that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise,
she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with
her; and he did eat.” (Genesis 3:5) In her God created innocence,
apparently Eve was protected from looking upon that forbidden fruit with
desire, until the tempter snuck into the Garden when Adam’s guard was down, and
turned her attention to it. Then as soon as she ate of the forbidden fruit, she
gave it to someone else to eat. When the devil sells any one of us on the same
rotten bill of goods, that is one of the first things we tend to want to do;
pass the “glory” of it on to others and get them in on the “good deal.” And we
fallen human creatures just love the devil’s “world” and expend all our life’s
energies to rise up as high as we can in it, because of the “glory” we have
gazed upon out there in the devil’s kingdom. And we so disdain farm labor
because there is no glory in it, only an humbling of our sinful being. Get
your eyes off that vain glory in the devil’s kingdom! Don’t consider
it! Don’t even look at it! Rather keep your eyes on your Glorious Creator and
purpose in your heart to love your Creator ordained first estate and be content
with it.
“Heavenly
Father, please deliver me from any and all ways the devil has deceived me
regarding the things written in this chapter of this book. Please save me from
gazing on all the vain glory out in the devil’s kingdom, and save me from
desiring it. Help me to truly seek my Creator’s Great Glory. Help me to live by
faith and not by sight. Help me to truly desire to be humble and to love the
lowly first estate of tilling the ground that Thou didst ordain for me. Please
work in my heart to make me content to be in the prison farm that Thou didst
ordain for all us sinner/criminals. I pray for Thee to work in the hearts of
all other people also, to cause them to do right in these matters also. Thank
Thee, Lord, for hearing this prayer. Amen.”
(This ends Chapter 5 of Creature Versus Creator. Congratulations
on hanging on during such a rough ride!)
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