real truth which exposes those lies. Time and truth will expose their lies as self-contradicting folly, lacking any evidence to substantiate them, noxious and bitter, built on loveless principles of hate. All their lies shall prove false by the harm and death they cause. And their lies obviously prove to be lies because they shift and change shape in every circumstance, while real truths will always remain true.
Nevertheless, half will always cling to those lies until they destroy themselves, and take innocent lives into the grave with them. So the half that can repent into truth must continuously war against lies. But let us remember that light shines into darkness and eliminates it. So the only way to defeat the darkness of lies, which works all evil, is to kill those lies with truth. Nothing physical, no amount of weapons and trained armies, can accomplish anything without the truth. Only truth can set us free, because everything God created functions most effectively according to His created principles of truth. And God’s power controls all energy in all space and time according to His own will alone.
Looking compassionate and concerned, this fake expert on the subject of truth, pretended to lovingly rebuke Eve for her laughable ignorance, for her own good. This fake authoritative, confident guide chuckled at that poor, inferior woman, as any evil father might, as he falsely attributed blame on his daughter and dehumanized her. Satan’s gaslighting went like this: “You won’t surely die, for God knows that in the day you eat it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:4-5, WEB). The problem with this lie was that it held a kernel of truth, which helped that devil convince Eve to believe this apparently great and worthy-to-be-esteemed spiritual teacher. For that fruit would indeed open her eyes. Yet that crafty demon was lying when he told her that God’s words were “fake news,” and God was not to be trusted. And this is yet another technique used by all demons and Satan’s preferred psychopathic offspring throughout history. Use a little truth to get dupes to trust the liars and to distrust the honest. Once that is accomplished, the dupes will be owned by the liars, because they will refuse to hear truth from the honest. Then also notice how Satan tried to usurp the role of the real God here, to replace God with himself. Here the devil wanted Eve to make him her lawmaker and judge, instead of God. Likewise, from that day on, Satan and his minions have been attempting to trick the elect into obediently worshipping them instead of God.
The next thing we should notice is how Eve never possessed even one thought or desire for that forbidden fruit, not until the devil suggested that she should desire it. And why would her mind of flesh want anything to do with that forbidden fruit, since her body literally had a perfect life. The garden was a balanced ecosystem with the right temperatures for her body, providing a wide variety of nourishing foods everywhere she walked, and clean water from four rivers nearby. It was a safe place that left her flesh wanting for absolutely nothing. No mind of flesh could ever hope for any more than that. Yet, even with this perfection for her flesh, Satan managed to develop disconnected desires in her, somehow caused her mind of flesh to want more. And how did that demonic spirit steal her contentment? That spirit stirred up covetous desires in Eve through his false interpretations of God’s Law. Satan actually used God’s Law to cause Eve to sin. The devil quoted God’s Word to lure Eve into sin. When the devil pointed out that God was limiting Eve, by not allowing her to eat the fruit of that forbidden tree, Eve wanted “freedom” from those limitations. Yet those limitations were the very things that kept her free. Without those limiting responsibilities, no true freedom was possible. Still, because that fruit would cause her to know good and evil, because it would grant her the power to discern and judge between good and evil, even in a way no other living entity on earth could do, she coveted that forbidden power. So a malicious spirit caused Eve’s mind of flesh to then covet what surely would not be good for it, and did this by misusing God’s Word in a cunning way.
Of course, God knew and predestined that Satan would tempt Adam and Eve into this sin. First God created Satan without the attribute of love, so he would inevitably want to be the lord of his own life, Page 179
even the god of all that exists. The devil’s lack of love caused him to create his own laws and ways, to pleased himself alone, even at a great cost to many others who would suffer because of his own loveless and limitless self-indulgence. Then God cast Satan down to the earth, together with the other loveless spirits He created. God put those demons right beside Adam and Eve, intentionally.
And God also created human spirits without much knowledge, as infantile spirits, specifically so they could be taught and trained on His temporary creation of the earth. Thus, it was easy for that devil to convince Eve’s flesh that there was more to gained than it found in all the other fruits of the garden. And it was not difficult to convince the managing spirit of Eve’s life to let her flesh pursue that illicit gain. All Satan had to do, to become the god ruling over her life, was to create a little lie and convince Eve that she too should want to become like God, as the ruler of her own life, through a knowledge of good and evil. Of course, in reality, this demon was simply hiding himself under the guise of a spiritual caregiver, while poisoning her, intending to swallow her whole life, to bind her in the darkness of his belly, to feed himself and his kingdom with her death. But Eve could not see this, because God had not yet allowed her to know and discern between good and evil. So Eve did sin.
And the devil’s disguise, as her angel of light, effectively made her mind of flesh deaf to the dire warnings shouted to her elect spirit within the chamber of her soul. Now, with her flesh in firm control of her behaviour, Eve was ready to do the bidding of her new lord and owner, Satan. The thoughts in her mind of flesh were filled with the carnal desires of her body, coveting forbidden material valuables that pleased her eyes of flesh, with a strong pride demanding absolute authority over her own physical life. “When the woman s aw that the tree was good for food , and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise , she took some of its fruit, and ate; and she gave some to her husband with her, and he ate it, too” (Gen. 3:6, WEB). The will of her mind of flesh was now ignoring and suppressing every attempt from her elect spirit to temper, subdue or correct thoughts in her soul. So, by nullifying her inner conscience, which functions by the elect spirit heeding God, Eve sinned and lured her beloved husband into her sin too. She gave him the fruit to eat. Then both Adam and Eve became slavish citizens of Satan’s kingdom, of the world order. Both ultimately would be rescued from this captivity. Yet their days in the nursery of God’s protective garden were now over. Now it was time to enter the more difficult parts of the training ground of the world. It was the ordained time to begin the process of being transformed into the likeness of their God, Jesus. Now both had to learn and grow some inner maturity, to gain loving empathy for God’s creations through tribulations. Like children leaving home, they had to grow up.
And, yes, God surely predestined all this. God effectively sent the devil to the earth where He had placed His only two elect children, Adam and Eve, in temporary bodies of unruly flesh. God made their elect spirits, breathed of the very substance of His own Spirit in them, to create them in His image, but as infants, as spirits lacking knowledge and weak in will. God put the forbidden tree in that garden, where they would see it daily. Thus, when Eve and Adam ate of the forbidden fruit,
“Yahweh God said, ‘Behold, t he man has become like one of U s, knowing good and evil . Now, lest he reach out his hand, and also take of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever...’ Therefore Yahweh God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken” (Gen. 3:22-24, WEB). God even sent angels to guard all entrances to the garden, lest any human being should ever try to return. Then that garden must have been utterly destroyed during the flood in Noah’s day.
From these words and actions of God, we know the Garden of Eden was a nursery, merely a place to keep Adam and Eve until they came of age, until they were ready to go out into the world for the teaching and training of their spirits. God was acting like human parents, who keep infants from any exposure to harm, then gradually give them more responsibility as they gain decision-making ability, Page 180
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until they leave home altogether. And the thing that made His first two children come of age was the acquisition of wisdom, the ability to make right judgments, just after their spirits started to correctly discern between good and evil, between what aligns with God’s attributes and what does not. When parents see that their children are like them, with the same decision-making abilities, they let them leave home. Thus, when Adam and Eve began to discern between good and evil, and God saw they had become more like “Us” (that is, their spirits had become like the three Persons of the Creator Spirit), God sent them out into the world. Adam and Eve became more like Jesus, who had been walking with them in the Garden, as their Creator God in a body of flesh. And Jesus was just like their heavenly Father above who ruled over all creations, since Jesus is one with the Father. Then both Jesus and the Father are one with the Holy Spirit, who speaks directly with human spirits and can even enter human hearts. Now Adam and Eve could judge and make decisions, could live by a spiritual/moral law, as God does, and were ready to be taught and trained to be even more like Him.
Then we also see how God no longer allowed Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of life, which kept them from aging and dying. For God had never intended for them to live eternally in bodies of flesh on earth. For God had already created heavenly homes for their spirits, new bodies made of spiritual substances, waiting for them in their permanent homeland of heaven. So their aging and eventual deaths in the flesh were absolutely necessary. However, for the time being, God granted everyone in His family of mankind very long lives, until a body of knowledge could be accumulated by them in a way that could be passed down to each subsequent generation. And God also created a priesthood who do the work of passing on this knowledge of God and His creations. Adam was the first and Abel was to be the second. But, after Cain slew Abel, God raised up Seth for that second generation and caused one from each generation of Seth to take up the torch. When this body of knowledge grew to an appropriate size, God shortened the days of mankind on earth, since each generation would not need as much time to learn truths and how to apply them. Then God created a nation of priests to serve this wisdom to all the world, as the population increased and spread over the earth.
Now, before looking more closely at the three ways Eve’s flesh succumbed into the temptations of the devil, also notice how Adam, her beloved husband, must have been standing nearby. For it says he was “with her” when she took the fruit and ate it. And, at that time, both were very much like little infants, even like all the animals. Their human spirits possessed the potential to discern between good and evil, even as God does. But neither had yet realized any of that potential, and were just as innocent as the animals. So Adam behaved toward Eve much like an ape does with his mate, and Eve followed Adam just like a female ape does in a paternal colony of apes. So, when Satan called Eve aside to the forbidden tree, Adam would have wondered why she was intrigued with the new kind of authoritarian figure in their garden. And he may have even barked at her, to get her attention and draw her away from that stranger. Yet he did not say a word while Satan lied to Eve. Nor did he stop her hand from taking that forbidden fruit, which was his God-given duty and the instinct God put in his heart. And Adam refrained from stopping Eve through more than his own curiosity because, if he was merely curious, he would have pulled Eve back and gone to see the Serpent himself. Rather, Adam let Eve go to that devil because he was afraid to go himself. Adam feared this strange being who entered his world, and fear caused him to allow that enemy to destroy his wife and whole life.
In the earliest times, before corruption defined the roles of men and women, both performed many of the same tasks involving feeding and caring for themselves and their families. But women naturally multiplied their own duties, in order to benefit those within the sphere of their lives, especially their own children and their own husbands. For their sense of worth was based on how the people in the sphere of their lives perceived them. But this attempt to please their people often came at the cost of Page 181
right and wise principles, by which all our works must be done, since we must ultimately do all for God, according to His precepts, or else life would soon unravel or crumble. Now a woman’s primary focus on her people was very good for her family and community, and absolutely necessary for the communion of all. Her ability to compromise and make sacrifices, to perform her people-oriented tasks, served God well. But, when women became so distracted by the wants and needs of their loved ones that they would begin to compromise and sacrifice God’s principles to do it, this could lead to disaster. So God created the male first, and made him able to give structure to his wife’s life.
God had created the mind of a man’s flesh to find his sense of worth from his works, not from the people. A man’s main focus turned his attention to the principles by which his works were done most effectively, in order to please God, since this is also the way his works would most effectively serve for the good of his people. Thus, although both the man and the woman often performed the same tasks, a man looked out for his wife. He had to occasionally limit her activities, when necessary, so she would not get carried away and do so many unnecessary things that would exhaust her, or even do harmful works. He had to provide a sound structure for her life, so she would prioritize what was right, just and necessary in God’s eyes. He had to remind her of the wise and true principles of God, so her works would not compromise these. Then, since a woman often held many different kinds of information in her mind of flesh, all at the same time and with almost equal access to all, so she could provide for the many needs and wants of her children and her people, she was also to remind her husband about many of the things he tended to forget. For a man’s mind of flesh was structured, made to place information in categories, as was necessary for effective works of God. Yet this kind of structure caused many necessary details of life to be overlooked. Thus, both needed one another and, working together as one mind of flesh, they could accomplish all that was necessary for life.
Only sin, not trials and suffering, could break apart this unity, this God-ordained way in which God created a man and a woman to become “one flesh,” so the two could more effectively serve God as a couple, better than they could as two individuals. And, by serving God better, they could also serve their children and their whole community better. But this also meant that, since sin hindered their works for God, it would not only destroy the lives of the man and woman themselves, but also destroy the lives of their children and everyone around them. Whole communities could fall due to the sins of merely a few people. And this damage could set them back for a very long time, possibly even forever. Furthermore, it was always easier to sin and destroy, but extremely difficult to do all rightly and rebuild what was destroyed. Thus, when Eve sinned, God gave her a gift, to remind her of the value of the people in the sphere of her life, especially her children. That is, God increased her pain and danger in childbirth. Then, when she valued her children more, she would value their father more too, until his values and ways ruled many decisions in her life. But, unfortunately, her desires for her man would also cause her to follow bad values and evil ways of an ungodly man too. Then, since Adam also sinned, by not being a good “head” of his wife, by becoming afraid to do the works God appointed him to do, God also gave him a gift, to remind him of the value of his works. No longer would his duties to his wife, nor his tending of the garden and caring for its creatures, always result in what he planned, expected and desired. Rather, his works would be frustrated, subjected to many difficulties and failures. And this would force him to be brave, as well as pay closer attention to his wife and all else that he did, lest all die. Then, eventually, their bodies of flesh would die, since that was God’s plan from the beginning. For He made heaven their permanent home, not the earth.
Now, there were three kinds of thoughts in Eve’s mind of flesh when she took the forbidden fruit.
And the devil, his demons and his non-elect children always strive to trigger these three kinds of thoughts, whenever they tempt the elect. Every sin we commit for the devil’s kingdom of sinners on Page 182
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earth begins with one or more of these three kinds of thoughts entering one’s mind of flesh. For each of these thoughts can stimulate desires until either the flesh gratifies them or an elect spirit reasons with the mind of flesh and turns it away from sin, as a good manager and counsellor of that flesh.
A tempter makes a victim’s mind of flesh think it wants or even needs some harmful or even deadly thing, although God’s created realities remind the victim’s spirit that no one should ever have such a thing. Yet, in spite of the truths presented to the spirit, tempted dupes will fall to those temptations, and want the destructive thing more than the beneficial things of God. Of course, whenever an elect soul is tempted, God also offers His counsel to that one’s elect spirit at the same time. And His good counsel always opposes all three kinds of thoughts and desires that tempters put in a minds of flesh.
Thus, if an elect spirit is awake and strong enough, nourished with the truth and wisdom of God, it will heed God’s counsel, speak reason to the flesh, guide its irrational flesh away from actions that cause harm or death, and seek less harmful or less deadly alternatives, possibly even beneficial ones.
And, eventually, God’s counsel will win over every elect spirit, and every elect spirit will be able to rightly manage its body. In the very end, all will walk in God’s ways. All shall inevitably take full control over their bodies and lives. Nevertheless, none of the elect will be able to fully manage these bodies of flesh that they are granted on earth. No elect spirits will become awake enough, nor learn enough truth and knowledge, to always turn their minds and bodies of flesh away from all sin. Not one elect soul on earth will repent into all God’s loving truth and wisdom until all feel the painful burning of Christ’s rebukes on the judgment day. So all the elect will someday learn to utterly reject all the thoughts and temptations of the demons and their children, but many stubborn and sleeping elect spirits exist on this earth. Thus, many elect souls will fall to temptations and sin far more than others. And many elect will learn too little too late to do any good during their earthly lives. But our goal is to not remain as they are, but learn to reject those kinds of thoughts used in all temptations.
The three temptations of Jesus are related to the three ways Eve’s mind of flesh desired the forbidden fruit, as quoted above (Gen. 3:6). And both Eve’s desires and Christ’s three temptations are also related to the thoughts John described as “all that is in the world order” and “is not of the Father”:
“Because all that [is] in the world order, the strong desires of the flesh and the strong desires of the eyes and the boasting of daily physical life, is not originating from the [heavenly]
Father, but is originating from the world order” (I John 2:16, ALT, from: ὅτι πᾶν τὸ ἐν τῷ
κόσμῳ, ἡ ἐπιθυμία τῆς σαρκὸς καὶ ἡ ἐπιθυμία τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν καὶ ἡ ἀλαζονεία τοῦ βίου, οὐκ
ἔστιν ἐκ τοῦ πατρός, ἀλλὰ ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου ἐστίν, SBLGNT).
Doctrines pertaining to how we fall into sin, and how we can prevent ourselves from succumbing to temptations, were well-developed among early biblical Jews and Christians. Of course, all of those soteriological teachings were severely corrupted and destroyed later, by the syncretization of Middle Platonism with Judaism and Christianity. However, they are still taught in both the Old and New Covenant Scriptures, which have remained virtually intact from the days they were written. So now we can still see how Jesus and the apostles dealt with temptations. And we can begin by comparing the three reasons Eve took the forbidden fruit (Gen. 3:6) with the three kinds of thoughts originating from Satan’s world order which John warned us about (I John 2:16), so we can begin to comprehend how Jesus responded to and overcame the three temptations from Satan of the same three categories: 1. First Eve “saw that the tree was good for food.” This is what John called “the strong longing and desire of the flesh” (ἡ ἐπιθυμία τῆς σαρκὸς), where the amoral mind of flesh seeks first the needs and pleasures of its body. In Jesus’ first temptation, the devil told His mind of flesh to use the power of His Spirit to serve His flesh, to feed His hungry body by turning stones Page 183
into physical bread. That is, Satan wanted His mind of flesh to manage the mind of His Spirit within the chamber of His soul. That devil wanted Jesus’ mind of flesh to “take captive” His Spirit, to take control of His Spirit, to command His Spirit of God and suppress all thoughts from God. For a demonic spirit has no power over the Spirit of God, but has been granted power over things of the earth, for a time. So Satan can easily rule over all the thoughts in a mind of flesh, that is, until the far more powerful Sovereign Spirit of God interferes with that devil, whose subject rule over the earth is forced to obey the High King in literally all things.
The elect always have access to the counsel and power of their oldest Brother and heavenly Father. Yet we very often allow our minds of flesh to rule over our spirits in the chambers of our souls, then “sell” our spiritual gifts and truths for money, power and status, so we can feed and please our flesh. And this is makes our minds of flesh into the heads, lords and gods ruling over our spirits. For example, although Jesus commanded us to freely give all that we have freely received from God (Mat. 10:8), many religious leaders try to make a profit from the sales of their preaching and teaching, by taking excessive wages from church offerings, or by selling their books for more than the cost of producing them. Yet, since their calling and knowledge is presumably freely granted by God, through His grace alone, the only right God and His Word gives to them is to receive a modest wage, and only from the excesses of their more wealthy brothers and sisters. None has any right to anything more. Thus, when they greedily take more than that, they are commit a great sin. These men are allowing their flesh to take their spirits captive, for the profit and pleasures of their flesh. These preachers have all fallen to this first kind of temptation, and have never repented out of these blatant sins.
From the beginning, God commanded: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Mat. 4:4, WEB, cf. Deut. 8:3). Furthermore, the bread or food which this Scripture refers to originates from God’s land through the miracle of life in God’s seeds interacting with God’s rain and God’s sun, after the hands God created have processed the fruits of those seeds. Thus, there is not one cent of the devil’s currency involved in the entire production of that food, and money is merely artificially inserted into that process through guile of Satan. So this is yet another law of God that establishes all His words, which He grants only to our spirits, as a higher priority in our lives than even the food our flesh needs to survive. Our spirits must rule over our flesh. And Jesus came to fulfill this law in us and through us. So Jesus teaches and trains us to walk according to the minds of our spirits, as our spirits turn to Him for His words of counsel regarding every decision affecting other souls, and every other important decision in our lives. We are not to walk according to our minds of flesh, which take our spirits captive, then force our spirits to serve our flesh.
2. Then Eve saw “that it was a delight to the eyes.” This is what John called “the strong longing and desire of the eyes” (ἡ ἐπιθυμία τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν). Because the flesh associates shiny things with sunshine, or its reflection on gratifying water and sweet fruits, it is strongly attracted to those things. And there are many other kinds of things that grab the attention of flesh due to similar associations. So the flesh develops strong desires for all superficially attractive things, all of which God either limits or forbids for our own good, lest those things might harm us through an excessive indulgence in them, or lest they outright destroy us. Yet such excesses or self-destructive things are always offered to us by Satan’s world order, for a price. For a majority of devil’s children want such excesses and self-destructive things, since they live for the indulgence of their flesh. So they are willing to pay far more for those useless, harmful or deadly things than they will for things they truly need. The more obscenely self-indulgent Page 184
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and evil a thing might be, the more they will pay for it. And Satan’s children want God’s elect children to be like them, or, better yet, serve as their slaves to provide them with such things.
All these self-indulgent and immoral things are purchased with the labour, time and resources that should be used for God’s works, such as to provide for the needy. Thus, invariably, all such things are born of sin, and usually involve sins such as exploitation, oppression, theft, slander, the dehumanization of brothers and sisters and many kinds of lies. So all these things are sins, and the only way to obtain them is through sin. Yet all are false gratifications of the flesh, since they are self-indulgent and immoral, never truly satisfying any real needs and never pleasing to the whole of the soul. Thus, as soon as one allows the flesh to get some of these things, the unsatisfied soul seeks to gratify its flesh by foolishly letting it pursue more of those things which can never gratify it. And the more a soul gets the more it wants, since it somehow thinks its mind of flesh will someday say “enough,” although the flesh never will.
In this way, the spirit in the soul eventually becomes an owned, entirely obedient slave of Satan, because the spirit has become a slave of its mind of flesh, which Satan rules. Then one is not only forced to serve Satan, but must also serve those self-indulgent and immoral things that one’s flesh craves without end, and must even serve money as well, since the devil will always solicit the help of the demon Mammon as his taskmaster, to whip his slaves into total and unquestioning obedience. Thus, one becomes a slave to demons and to things, with no time, energy or strength left to serve God or His people. For all one’s self-indulgent and immoral things will require extensive maintenance, which will cost much money, and the devil will only give his currency to those who blindly serve his will. Thus, the more one gets, the less free one becomes, and the less one’s spirit is able to make any decisions in one’s life.
So now you can begin to see why Satan offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world—castles, gold, treasures, demeaned servants, prostitutes, luxuries, bobbles, trinkets, toys and opulence.
For those who rule those subject kingdoms in Satan’s kingdom are Satan’s slaves. And the devil only grants the biggest self-indulgent and immoral kingdoms to his most beaten-down, spiritually dead and obedient slaves. And Jesus knew this. So Jesus told him: “You shall w
orship the Lord your God, an d you shall serve Him only ” (Mat. 4:10, WEB, cf., Deut. 6:10-13). Biblical worship primarily involves a trusting esteem and faithful service. So, to worship God alone, we cannot allow ourselves to serve Satan and his empty, superficial things of his world order. Rather, our spirits serve Jesus, and trust every word He whispers in our hearts.
3. Then the Scriptures reveal how Eve saw “that the tree was to be desired to make one wise.”
This is what John called “the pride, self-esteem, confidence or boasting of physical life” (ἡ
ἀλαζονεία τοῦ βίου), the self-esteeming pride and sinning honour which Satan touts as the
“glory” of his world order. The flesh desires this meaningless and harmful esteem from men the institutions owned by the devil. But that kind of false pride and fake honour can never gratify an elect spirit. Only the souls’ fulfilling gratification in a good work done well, in a way that truly pleases God, comforts an elect spirit with the knowledge that one is acceptable and even loved by God. This is the only kind of “pride” and “honour” we seek, even if all the souls in Satan’s world slander these works, and call them disgraceful and shame for doing them. For all the “pride” and “honour” offered by Satan—all his delusions of status and all that brings admiration from the devil’s blind minions, all that makes a worthless sinner feel superior to one’s brothers and sisters in the family of mankind, all that makes an oppressed slave of demons feel like a god in control of one’s own life and other lives—is disgusting.
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And, for the falsely religious, this arrogance offered by the devil always involves deluding oneself into believing one is a god ruling over the real God Himself. Satan makes the heads of his fake churches think they are able to manipulate God’s decisions, or even command God to serve them. They think they can actually forgive, condemn, join souls to God’s true eternal church of Israel, cast souls out of His church, bind spirits in marriage covenants and so on, through their own authority, without waiting upon God’s commands for any of these things. They act according to the wills of their flesh instead of allowing their spirits to seek God’s counsel in all matters of life and faith, which is the true worship and service of God.
It requires a massive deluding of one’s entire soul to believes these incredibly self-indulgent lies. And one must not only lie to others, but also to oneself, before one can walk in that kind of false pride and fake honour, especially to think God is one’s personal servant who obeys the will and commands of one’s flesh. Yet this is the kind of pride and honour that the Roman Catholic church, and all its Protestant daughter churches, have promoted from the beginning.
Then most evangelicals, especially those believing in the “power of faith” to save and get rich through a fictitious “free will” of the mind of flesh, became strong proponents of this kind of pride and honour too. All have taught that man can control the choices and actions of God through “free will,” if one will only “take a leap of faith,” meaning, “if you believe that you control your own destiny and the choices of God, you can cause God’s power to obey the will of your flesh, even to make you wealthy and powerful in Satan’s enslaving world order.”
This most demonic, self-indulgent, unjust, psychopathic and blasphemous kind of pride and honour, the kind practised by evangelical “word of faith” churches, is exactly the same kind of sin that Satan wanted Jesus to commit. This was precisely what that devil tempted Jesus to do, when he told Jesus to “take a leap of faith” and throw Himself off of the pinnacle of the temple. That demon wanted Jesus to behave just like those evangelicals, and try to force God to save Him, to make God obey the will of His flesh. And Satan also quoted God’s Word as a
“proof text,” to support his false doctrines about the “power of faith,” just like his false churches have done from the beginning. However, Jesus responded by declaring, “You shall not test the Lord, your God” (Mat. 4:7, WEB, cf. Deut. 6:16). You shall not make demands of God, nor try to trick God into giving you what your flesh desires. You must never try to coerce God into doing the will of your flesh by threatening to forsake Him and His ways. For our God teaches our spirits is to quiet our flesh, so our spirits may hear what God has to say about our problems, so our spirits can ask our loving Father for His counsel and His power to help us. We seek His solutions to all our physical and spiritual trials. And we do not let our flesh suppress or take control of our spirits, so that flesh can question His power, or even His existence, then say: “Is Yahweh among us, or not?” (Ex. 17:7, WEB), when it demands that God obey its own ignorant will. We do not do what Israel did at Massah, when their flesh thirsted. Rather, our spirits ask God’s help to manage our unruly flesh, so our spirits can hear what He commands. For only His wise solutions can gratify both the mind of an elect spirit and the mind flesh within the chamber of one’s soul, but demonic pride cannot gratify either.
Therefore, in all three temptations, the Spirit of Jesus overcame them. Jesus did not overcome any of them by emotionally psyching out his brain of flesh, nor by suppressing or oppressing the thoughts in His mind of flesh. And Jesus did not physically limit, damage or kill His flesh, to prevent Himself from succumbing to those great temptations. He did not tape His mouth shut to prevent Himself from eating bread, did not blind His eyes to prevent Himself from seeing the fake “glory” of Satan’s world order, and did not kill Himself to prevent Himself from dying in away that tested God. Rather, Page 186
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the Spirit in Jesus, which is the Spirit of God, simply pointed to the truths and wisdom taught in God’s Word, and to all the theological implications of those Scriptures. His Spirit simply managed His flesh, by counselling His mind of flesh, by pointing out that it would be foolish to heed Satan.
Now, before continuing, you may have noticed that Matthew and Luke provided a different order for the three temptations of Jesus. The order above is: (1) what Eve saw as good for food and John called a lust of the flesh related to Jesus’ temptation to turn stones into bread; (2) what Eve saw as pleasant to the eyes and John called a lust of the eyes related Jesus’ temptation to become powerful and wealthy in Satan’s world order; and (3) what Eve saw as something which could make her wise and John called the pride of life related to Jesus’ temptation to test God by jumping off a pinnacle of the temple. This is the order presented above, the church’s traditional order and the order of Jesus’
three temptations found in the Gospel of Luke. That is, Luke conformed the order of Jesus’ three temptation to the order of soteriological doctrines pertaining to temptations that are found in Genesis 3:6 and I John 2:16). Yet Matthew presented His three temptations in a different order (i.e., as 1-3-2).
But Matthew’s order is likely the order in which Jesus actually experienced these three temptations, and also the order in which He taught His disciples to overcome demonic appeals to the desires of the flesh while being tempted in these three ways. For the strongest fleshy desires rise from panic in a mind of flesh, when it is afraid that it cannot obtain its most essential bodily needs. So Jesus would have taught His disciples about how to overcome this strongest kind of temptation first. Then He would have them how to nullify the next strongest kind of temptation second, and how to crush the least strongest last (i.e., in the order of 1-3-2), just as Matthew taught. For, although the first and strongest kind of temptation is also the most common kind, the third and weakest kind of temptation is the second most common kind, while the second strongest kind is the least common kind. So the traditional order of soteriological doctrines in the Bible listed the three kinds of temptations from the most common to the least common kinds (1-2-3), as Luke taught. But Satan would have begun His temptations with the strongest possible kind, then moved on to the second strongest kind when “Plan A” did not work. Lastly, the devil would have attempted the least powerful kind of temptation when
“Plan B” failed. After attempting all three kinds, there was no other possible way to tempt Jesus, since all temptations fit into these three categories, and there are no others. So Satan fled from Jesus.
However, the fleshy desire that the devil can most effectively employ to temp rich, middle-class or relatively secure religious people into sin, is the second most powerful but least common kind, the kind which is often called “the pride of life.” It is the fleshy desire to gain power over the destiny of one’s own life, an attempt to become one’s own god and even the god of God. Those who have lived in poverty and under oppression throughout their lives, which includes most of the people on earth, are seldom deceived by this kind of temptation. For they see right through the empty, vain delusion of the pride which enslaves the rich. It is almost impossible for Satan to trick many of them into thinking they can exert complete control of their own live, as well as the lives of others, even over the almighty Creator God Himself. However, it is very easy to delude the rich with such nonsense.
And having lots of money is not the only kind of wealth. Those who possess a wealth of knowledge are also extremely susceptible to this least common kind of temptation, including those who gather up the riches of Scripture, or think they have. The religious scholars and heads of churches think they have overcome their most basic and instinctive fleshy desires and fears regarding the basic needs of their flesh, yet often develop an enormously vast pride of life, assuming they are great leaders and shepherds in Satan’s world order. Their desires of the flesh to control their own destiny, and the decisions of God Himself, knows no bounds. Thus, for the second temptation of Jesus, the devil appealed to the third kind of fleshy desire that Eve and John described. This temptation of the Page 187
religious human flesh of Jesus was an attempt to get His flesh to silence the Spirit of God in Him, so His flesh could delude itself into thinking it had the right to be the god of Christ’s life. Of course, the almighty Spirit of God in Jesus’ body of flesh did not even begin to allow such a sin. No little and temporary mind of flesh, whose every atom is governed by God, could ever overpower God in Jesus.
Satan’s third and last temptation appealed to the second most common kind in the traditional order, but the least powerful kind. This carnal desire seeks what is pleasant to the eyes of flesh, what John called the lust of the eyes, a craving covetousness for status, power and wealth. This is not as strong as the desire of the flesh to survive, but a stronger desire than the pride of life. For this lust of the eyes is related to the first and most powerful of fleshy desires. After all, status, power and wealth are the things which Satan and his lying world order present as solutions to all life’s problems. If the flesh obtains the influence of status, the power to control lives and enough wealth to hire others to do the works which provide for all one’s needs, then one’s flesh will always get all it needs to survive.
The devil also saved this kind of temptation until last because the desires of the eyes almost always causes the pride of life as well. After one gains status, power and wealth, one almost always tends to think one is a god ruling one’s own destiny, as well as the destinies of subordinates or “inferiors,” or even the will of God Himself. Furthermore, once one lives for the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, it makes one into a complete slave of demons. For such a one begins to cling to one’s status, power or wealth, and depends upon it. So one sacrifices more and more to keep those things or to gain even more. In doing so, one has no more time or energy for the things of God, not for one’s own family and true friends, nor anyone else who does not appease one’s pride or does not feed one’s selfish ambitions for a greater status with more power and wealth. So one becomes utterly alone, with the loveless demons as one’s only companions, yet afraid that they might take away all they gave if one dares to disobey them. Thus, as a totally dependent slave, one will do anything a devil commands, even murder one’s own children, just to keep or gain worthless status, power or wealth.
Once anyone depends on the delusions of status, power and wealth, one begins to believe the lie that one can exert total control over one’s own destiny. But, in reality, one becomes totally enslaved and manipulated by the devil and his minions. So one will more easily fall to every kind of temptation.
But a poor person finds it easier to accept losses of the flesh. A humble one more easily accepts that God alone bears the status of Lord and King. For God alone holds all power and genuinely owns literally all created beings and things, to do with as He pleases. God alone rules all destinies. And this also means that God alone judges who will or will not enter His home in heaven too. If a poor person will receive this kind of knowledge in one’s eternal elect spirit, it is far easier for this poor one to lose a few temporary things that one’s flesh holds in stewardship for God’s loving purposes.
So the teachings from God’s Law, which Jesus quoted after each temptation, are provided in the best order for the most effective discipleship in Matthew’s Gospel. That is, Jesus’ first quote, telling us to respect God’s words of truth more than material gain, is the first principle an elect spirit must learn in order to successfully face temptations. It helps one begin to walk according to one’s spirit instead of one’s flesh, in communion with God, so His Spirit can teach one’s spirit His intended meanings of His words. Then Jesus’ second quote, forbidding the testing or tempting of God, prohibiting attempts to selfishly manipulate God into serving one’s own purposes, is the second principle required to overcome temptations and walk with God, so one can see the emptiness of lusts of the eyes, so God will be one’s only God. And Jesus’ third quote, about worship, is a principle every true disciple will automatically and spontaneously practise to be effective in the previous two principles. A humbled elect spirit develops a great sense of gratitude and esteem for God, and serves Him only, in worship.
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spirit lives by God’s words and worship Him as one’s only God. First our elect spirits learn to live by every word God’s Spirit speaks to our spirits. As we learn to trust God as our only Lord and Head, as our spirits truly worship God through love, without tempting or testing Him, we serve Him rightly.
So, in our discipleship under God, our spirits learn to manage our flesh in the order of 1-3-2. For we need to learn the first and third principles before we can overcome the traditional second kind of fleshy desire, the pride of life. Still, the traditional order of 1-2-3 is the logical order, because it lists temptations in the order of the most frequent kind to the least common kind. So, in terms of our own personal ability to overcome temptations, it is better to develop our spiritual skills in the order of Matthew’s Gospel (1-3-2). But Luke’s traditional order (1-2-3) is better for judging our own lives and those of others. To judge biblically, with the goal of eliminating destructive sinful actions and nullifying the deadly works of the devil, we first need to identify the true source of each sin, the specific kinds of temptations which are leading souls into that kind of sin. And, to analyze and learn the source of a sin, it is best to start by determining whether or not the most common kinds of temptations are causing the sin, and to what extent. For most sins begin with desperation for the necessities of life. Most sins are initiated by lusts of the flesh, by fears of lacking bodily necessities.
If a soul lacks faith in God and His people, the flesh will sin for its own survival. So we look for these kinds of things first, as the first and root causes of sin. Then we try to provide for all bodily needs, while we also teach faith, in order to stop the sinning. But these are not the only kinds of temptations causing all sins. Providing for the needs of all can eliminate many sins, but not all sins, contrary to the economic theories of materialistic humanists. We need to realize that a whole series of different temptations leads into most kinds of sin. Many temptations of many kinds are the root causes of most sins, and usually temptations of more than one kind. Sins are complex! Look at Eve.
All three kinds of temptations led her into her sin. So, after eliminating the first and most common kinds of temptations, and establishing equity to meet the physical needs of all, we must then root out the next most common kinds of temptations, then the third and least common kinds of temptations.
To judge ourselves and others in a biblical way—in a way that stops the sinning and repairs the damages caused by the sins—we also need to limit, suppress and hopefully cease all works for the lusts of the eyes. We need to reduce or stop works done to worshipfully serve demons and human gods. Our next step is to turn our energies toward good purposes, worthy goals and right causes, as much as God will allow, and pray that He stirs His elect to do so more each day. In other words, we look for the traditional second kinds of temptations next, and seek to eliminate them. And the only way to do this is by practising right religion. To stop sin, elect spirits must genuinely worship God, by acting upon the spiritual and physical realities God created, in all they say and do. For, when even one in every hundred, in any population, has an elect spirit that honestly tries to serve God, His own power will work through that one percent to save their land. Throughout history, countless wanna-be human gods have tried to wipe out true religion in their lands, and remove God’s Word from it. So their lands have always and invariably become unjust hells. On the other hand, wherever the truths of God’s justice, equity and love are practised, wherever even a few of the elect honestly try to serve God through the love of their spirits, God has always sent some of His heaven to them in their land.
Yet, even after overcoming the first two kinds of temptation, we must also strive to undo Satan’s temptations of the third traditional kind. We will still need to war against the pride of life, all types of self-worship and all attempts to manipulate God and His creations for one’s own profit and pleasure, all selfish ambitions that tempt or test God. Even after we build equity that provides for the needs of all, and after enough elect begin to faithfully serve God, the flesh will still desire more, since flesh is amoral and always discontent with its temporary, dying condition. Thus, demonic spirits will always Page 189
try to convince the flesh that it can get more for itself, supposedly for its own glory and pleasures, by committing ruthless sins, by gaining far more than the plenary providence of God and His creations.
So the traditional order of temptations found in Genesis 3:6 and I John 2:16 is wise. This order is very useful in the systematic judging of ourselves and others, so we and our people can overcome temptations and live abundant, just, equitable lives. This traditional order warns us to watch out for this sequence of temptations which will lead us into sin, presented to our minds of flesh in this order: 1. When we walk according to our minds of flesh, thinking only of our bodily needs, we usually commit only the basic sins of omission. If we only fear the loss of our needs, we may live a very empty and superficial life for the flesh alone, while neglecting our eternal and spiritual needs. Yet we will live relatively orderly lives. Nevertheless, we will only obey the laws of man to protect our flesh from punishments men might inflict upon us if we break their laws.
2. When we live according to the lusts of our eyes, our selfish ambitions can lead us into much greater sins. We may even kill for a higher status, more power and greater wealth. Yet these sins are still merely against God’s “natural laws,” against His laws pertaining to our physical relationships with other human beings and His material creations. We usually break only the last six orders of God’s laws, those falling under the last six categories summarized by His Ten Commandments. It usually does not lead to sins against the first four orders of God’s Law, to sins against the first four of the ten archetypal commandments given on Mount Sinai.
3. Only maliciously spiritual people, who consciously know of God and His ways, in their minds of flesh, who have outright wicked spirits, can walk in pride regarding their physical lives in Satan’s world order. Only by embracing love delusions that makes them think they are in complete control of their own destinies, can these souls dream that they are gods, even gods who can judge and command the actions of the real God. Only these commit sins of the first four orders, the kinds of sins which God has deemed to be the very worst kinds of sins.
Consider how Jesus and Matthew, while presenting the three temptations, did not need to tell devout Jews about how each of these three kinds of desires of the flesh, taught in Genesis 3:6, could lead them, step by step, into progressively worse kinds of sins. For all devout Jews frequently heard, all their lives, warnings about these three kinds of temptations which appealed to the desires of their flesh, and how the devil could use each kind, one kind after another, to tempt them into ever worse kinds of sins. Even before most devout Jews were old enough to discern between good and evil, they could already associate each of the three kinds of temptations with the three kinds of fleshy desires.
And, as they grew older, and felt the devil tempt their flesh, each experienced how each kind did indeed lead to more destructive and deep-rooted kinds of sins. Therefore, when Matthew wrote His Gospel for devout Jews, he certainly did not need to present them with the traditional order, since they knew that well. Instead, Matthew taught them the order in which Jesus had experienced His temptations, the order that He personally taught His disciples to overcome their own temptations.
But Luke did not have this luxury, since his Gospel was written for Gentiles, not for devout Jews.
Luke wrote for those lacking a thorough understanding of the Scriptures. Therefore, Luke decided to list the three temptations of Christ in the traditional order. For, once a Gentile was brought into the true church of Israel, into the church established by Christ’s true disciples, that Gentile would be taught God’s Word by that church. And those earliest churches read one section of the five books of Moses (Gen. to Deut.) every Sabbath day, in a way where every verse from all five books would be read every year. Then, after each reading, the men would discuss those Scriptures, all day. Because every Gentile convert attended a true church established by the Jewish apostles, that Gentile would Page 190
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soon learn the teachings of Genesis 3:6. The teaching elders in the church would explain the three kinds of fleshy desires which can lead to sin, and how the devil uses those desires of the flesh to tempt us. So, if Luke did not put the three temptations in the traditional order, his readers might become confused about how the second and third temptations of Jesus related to the second and third kinds of fleshy desires listed in Genesis 3:6. Thus, Luke kept the traditional order for the Gentiles.
Christ’s First Temptation
Now we know the reason Jesus went out into the wilderness. As our new and eternal High Priest of His everlasting New Covenant church and kingdom, He wanted His flesh to feel all that we might feel, so He could fully empathize with all our weaknesses through His own flesh. Of course, from the beginning, long before Jesus raised His body from the baptismal waters and immediately walked out into the wilderness, He knew His flesh would be tempted by the devil. And He obviously wanted His flesh to be tempted by Satan himself, so He could know the very worst of what we go through when our flesh is tempted by demons or by Satan’s spiritual human children. Also, Jesus wanted to experience these temptations alone, since each elect spirit must do so alone as well. Our loved ones may be able to prevent us from being falling to some temptations, or stop us from physically committing sins. But they cannot stop our minds of flesh from falling to temptations and taking our spirits captive. Each elect spirit must rebuke and maintain control over the mind of one’s own flesh, through the knowledge, wisdom, power and love taught by our Teacher, by His training to apply all.
But one thing we may now ask is why Jesus caused His body of flesh to fast for forty days before He was tempted. To prevent ourselves from being tempted beyond our spirit’s strength to overcome the desires of our flesh, we usually tend to give our bodies whatever is lawful. We provide our flesh with a decent amount of food, so our flesh will be able to think well and do the works our spirits need it to do. For we want our flesh to be tempted to steal or commit other sins just to satisfy its hunger. We also avoid sexually arousing, exploitative words and pictures, then marry a spouse of the opposite sex, a friend and companion, so our sexual desires do not overwhelm our minds of flesh, or prompt us to exploit other souls for mere sexual gratification, nor allow our flesh to be exploited. We do all kinds of things to provide for the lawful needs of our flesh, so we can avoid being tempted into sin.
Yet Jesus did the exact opposite. Jesus caused His flesh to starve, even to the point where His flesh was almost dying. And He did this so He could experience the strongest possible temptations of His flesh, even from Satan himself. Of course, it is sometimes good for us to fast a little, to rebuke our flesh, when its desires are growing too lawless and excessive. If our flesh is becoming so gluttonous that it interferes with our works for God, we may deny it food for awhile, perhaps half a day or more, to reign it in, so our spirits can maintain full control over our minds of flesh. If our flesh is growing too obsessed with good looks and clothing, we may fast from fashionable clothing and wear only what is most common, to rebuke our flesh and take control over its carnal pride. If our minds of flesh are thinking about sex, when we require our minds to do God’s works, we might gratify its desires with our spouse, or at night in bed, but soundly rebuke any sexual thoughts that oppose God’s Law, lest our flesh begins to take our spirits captive and make life empty. Yet Jesus went out to intentionally give His own body of flesh the strongest possible incentive to rebel against God.
The reason Jesus fasted so long was because His Spirit was so strong, because the Spirit managing His flesh, and giving life to His flesh, was not an infantile, created, human spirit like ours. His was the uncreated Spirit of the omnipotent God. So, to feel all His elect children could feel, whenever a dark spirit tempts them through desires of their flesh, Jesus wanted His flesh to try to overcome His almighty Spirit in the strongest way possible. Even though His flesh had been reigned in since birth, Page 191
always kept under His Spirit’s wise and godly management through every kind of temptation that all humans endure, Jesus wanted to feel the very strongest kinds of temptations through the flesh, so He could become more acceptable to us, trusted more by us, when He counselled us about temptations.
Jesus had to incite the most powerful fleshy desires He could. Only the strongest possible wants of His flesh would be able to stir His flesh into rebellion against the powerful Spirit of God within Him, and in a ways that we, with our easily fooled infantile elect spirits created in His image, would fully identify and empathize with Him, then trust His judgments and counsel more. Then this attempted rebellion of His flesh would also help Jesus empathize with all the kinds of temptations that the devil and his minions used to lure elect souls into sins. Now some will say that, if these temptations taught the Spirit of God in Jesus how to empathize with us in a more complete way, then God was actually learning something while He was being tempted. God was gaining experiential knowledge during this time. Therefore, if God was learning something at this time, then He did not know literally everything before this time. So God was not omniscient nor immutable before then, since He lacked this knowledge and He also changed when He gained this knowledge. However, this kind of thinking is not taking into account the biblical and true definitions of the omniscience and immutability. For His omniscience is the knowledge of all that exists and will exist, as the Designer and Creator of all.
But this knowledge does not preclude the creation of new things from His place outside of all past, present and future time, even the creation of new love and other spiritual things. Then God’s eternal immutability refers to the unchanging nature or essence of God, who creates and learns as He wills.
It is also true that God will cause some of His elect children to go through similar dire tribulations as well, so they too might build up more compassion and empathy for others, since He created them in His image. Or God may call some elect to willingly enter hardships of the flesh, so they can learn to do His loving works for the elect who fall into sin through the same desires of the flesh. However, we must be careful about our reasons for fasting and suffering in the flesh, and know the real reason that Jesus fasted for forty days, that it was God’s will for our own sakes. For, to intentionally fast for forty days, or deliberately cause great suffering in one’s flesh, in a way that is not the will of God, is a sin. And, if one does such a thing in order to force God to hear one’s prayers, it is a greater sin, of a higher magnitude, because it is an attempt to coerce God into obeying one’s own will and demands.
We know that “God is a Spirit” (e.g., πνεῦμα ὁ θεός, John 4:24). Then Matthew stated: “Jesus was led into the wilderness under the command of [His] Spirit” (ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἀνήχθη εἰς τὴν ἔρημον ὑπὸ
τοῦ πνεύματος, Mat. 4:1, SBLGNT). And Luke also said the same: “Jesus, full of [i.e., completely controlled by] [His] Holy Spirit, turned back from the Jordan [River] and was being led by [His] Spirit throughout the wilderness” (Ἰησοῦς πλήρης πνεύματος ἁγίου ὑπέστρεψεν ἀπὸ τοῦ Ἰορδάνου, καὶ
ἤγετο ἐν τῷ πνεύματι ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ, Luke 4:1, SBLGNT). Since we also know Jesus was the Messiah, the Immanuel (“God among us”) and the “Son of God” (i.e., God in a body of human flesh), we also know His life-giving Spirit was God. Therefore, we can conclude that Jesus began to wander alone through the wilderness, without food, by God’s will alone. God in Jesus commanded the flesh of Jesus to fast for forty days before Satan tempted that body of flesh through the strongest possible desires which His flesh could possess, even a strong desire to save itself from death. First the devil appealed to the flesh’s desire to survive. Then Satan appealed to flesh’s desire to force God to obey its will. Lastly, Satan lured Christ’s flesh with a promise to grant it all that it would ever need to survive and gratify all its desires, if that flesh would serve him instead of God’s Spirit dwelling in it.
We must remember that Jesus did all this through God’s will alone, lest we begin to think we can grow stronger in spirit by wilful physical deeds of the flesh, like fasting for long periods of time, or other kinds of physical suffering. To think this is a lie. And that lie can also lead our minds of flesh Page 192
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into believing other worse lies. If one thinks one’s flesh can build up one’s own spirit, by causing the flesh to suffer, one’s mind of flesh may become proud and take one’s spirits captive, to effectively silence one’s spirit, while one’s mind of flesh thinks it has become more “spiritual.” This delusion in a mind of flesh is never “spiritual,” no matter what the flesh does. An arrogant so-called “spiritual”
mind of flesh will only try to manipulate God through fasting and prayers, or by other attempts to cause its body to suffer. All this is merely carnal, strictly fleshy, never “spiritual.” And it can become pure evil. In reality, the only way to grow in Christ is an elect spirit trusts Him, and applies all the concepts which the Spirit of our God, Jesus, directly grants to it. If His teaching and training might involve some suffering of the flesh, in sessions ordained and controlled by Him, so be it. But we must not pretend our minds of flesh become “spiritual” by intentionally making our bodies suffer.
Now, when our God Jesus decided it was the day to allow Satan to draw near and tempt His flesh, the devil’s first temptation was: “Since you are the Son of God, speak so that these stones become bread” (Εἰ υἱὸς εἶ τοῦ θεοῦ, εἰπὲ ἵνα οἱ λίθοι οὗτοι ἄρτοι γένωνται, Mat. 4:3, SBLGNT). So Satan tempted Christ’s mind of flesh to take control over the power and actions of the Spirit of God inside it, to make the Spirit serve the body. But God ordained that ever mind and body of flesh must always serve its life-giving spirit as its lord. And, since the Spirit in Jesus is God, this natural and ordained order was even more critical. For, as soon as any ordinary human spirit begins to let its mind and body of flesh rule over its life, chaos and destruction is the result. But, if a body of amoral flesh began to rule over the Creator’s Spirit, the amount of devastation would be infinitely magnified.
Satan wanted Christ’s mind of flesh to usurp the rule of its Lord, and become the master who told His Spirit what to do. This would start by the flesh using the Spirit’s power for its own physical survival. But it certainly would not end there. If the flesh took control, it would demand more and more, without end. However, the Spirit in Jesus was the wise God, who would never be so foolish as to ever allow a mind and body of flesh to become His lord. The Spirit in Jesus owned that body and had commanded it to fast for forty days. And His Spirit could even command His flesh to fast until it died, if He chose to do so. Yet the foolish and infantile spirits of other elect human beings fall to this temptation frequently. In fact, it is the most common kind of temptation used by the devil and the most common kind that the elect fall to. Satan was actually trying to convince Jesus’ mind of flesh to rebel against God, and teaching His flesh that the desires of God are merely secondary to physical needs. And this is exactly what his unjust, vile world order is always telling the elect, all day and everyday. The devil, from the time of Adam and Eve, has always wanted us to focus mostly on the needs and wants of our flesh. Satan’s kingdom has always tried to make religion into a mere secondary matter, into something we might delve into for recreation and mental “comforting.” Yes, Satan is often a proponent for the “freedom of religion,” as long as it is fake religion, preferably his invented religion of humanism, and only practised in one’s spare time, in ways he calls “rational.”
What Satan actually and consistently forbids in his kingdom is for anyone to be “too spiritual to be any practical good,” that is, where he defines “practical” as serving the carnal and unjust whims of his appointed elite psychopaths governing his earthly kingdom. Then he also redefines “spiritual”
and “religion” in ways that merely involve physical rituals and myths, to ensure that these will indeed be useless, impractical, irrational and of no physical good for anyone. The Satan can easily convince his favourite duped children in his kingdom, whom he appoints to the most authoritative positions in his steep hierarchies, to disdain every kind of spirituality and religion. In other words, the devil makes his elite into the most stupid fools alive on earth. But we must not be deceived by all that. The elect must remember that all behaviours and laws—all that prevents individual lives from falling into vacant, empty despair, and all that maintain the bonds of just love within all communities Page 193
and nations—are entirely spiritual, and can only be taught and understood by spirits through a right, pure, wise religion, through a priesthood who faithfully serves the Spirit that created all existence.
Without true religion to teach the genuine truths and wisdom of God, everyone’s life would become totally meaningless and empty, as well as extremely stupid and destructive. But Satan is the kind of enemy who loves to vengefully destroy all he cannot possess for himself. And his favourite method is to destroy all God’s properties from the inside out, in the most painful way possible. Then Satan’s servants do the same. Look at how that devil’s mindless slaves, like Hitler and Putin, sent their own agents into free democratic lands in Europe and the Americas, into the nations which try to govern their people according to the just principles of God’s Word. And the very first thing these cunning deceivers did, was to turn religion against God and His people. Then, with the help of a little of Satan’s invention of money and some petty blackmail of the flesh, their fake religion convinced countless mindless, greedy, carnal dupes to embrace fascism. Then Satan commanded these slaves to labour hard and sacrifice their lives for the “good works” of causing divisions, injustice, suffering, death and destruction, in ways that inevitably destroyed even themselves. Satan and his slaves—but especially his most favoured dupes, the elite granted his greatest power in his kingdom—have never stopped promoting chaos and internal strife by breaking down concepts of truth and wisdom in the people of God, to destroy spiritual love, values and laws in any of the individuals, communities and nations they cannot steal from God, and always use false religion as their primary weapon to do so.
This first temptation may seem simple enough, since the devil simply asked Jesus to turn stones into bread, to feed His starving flesh. And, for most unthinking fools, that was all there was to it. Then those same kinds of fools say the same regarding all the political, military and economic systems of Satan’s world order, that they are simply necessary to provide for the needs of the flesh. And, as long as Satan can keep enough foolish dupes believing that only matters of flesh matter, and that spiritual matters of love, justice and equity do not matter, he can maintain the power of his demonic systems.
But, to keep enough duped in this way, that devil needs to invent and promote his own carnally oriented religions, especially sects of humanism. For false religions are needed to meditate away all spiritual realities, so the focus of the people will rest upon falsely perceived material “necessities.”
For instance, fake religion will convince their dupes that they must kill anyone who physically smears water on babies in the wrong way, or who does not recoil in absolute horror over the way
“Mr. Potato Head” is no longer “gender specific.” In the meantime, these totally physically oriented and spiritually lawless dupes will ignore the needs of the widows, orphans and strangers, even in a defiant rebellion against God’s spiritual demand for love. Yet they will practise putting on a mask of compassion in front of their mirrors, and say they will “pray for them” with soft voices and crocodile tears—although they never pray, nor ever do anything else, through true, just, pure, God-like love.
Real faith and true religion trusts in God’s words, whether they are written in nature, written in His Word or spoken to one’s elect spirit by the Holy Spirit of God. Whether or not one claims to be a Christian or Jew, it does not matter. All that matters is whether or not one’s human spirits hears and heeds the Spirit of the one and only Creator God. Whoever will always act on those words from the one real God, in wise ways that He Himself trains one’s heart to apply those truths, is a true servant of God, even if that one was never exposed to true, biblical Christianity and still remains captive to a false church or some kind of institution of secular humanism. God does not care what the flesh calls itself, or does as an outward sign of its religion. Only the human spirit’s ability to love in a just, equitable way to fulfill His Law matters to God. Yet Satan’s humanistic religions do the complete opposite. In all of the devil’s fake religions, especially his humanistic theistic and secular religions, nothing but the professions of the flesh and the physical acts done as signs of one’s faith matter. But Page 194
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a spirit’s ability to rightly love means nothing. In fact, the only way one can ever rise to the top of the steep hierarchies in Satan’s fake religions is to be as loveless, ruthless and psychopathic as possible, but in a cunning way that deceives others into thinking one’s cruelty is patriotic, brave, selfless religion. We have seen this kind of fake religion throughout history, and it widespread today.
By far, the most common and fundamental way of tempting both individuals and groups of people into sin and false religion is by convincing them to let their minds of flesh rule over their spirits, by causing them to prioritize the wants and needs of their flesh over the desires of God for their spirits.
No other kind of temptation comes even close to this. For, once the wants and needs of the flesh are the highest priority, stupidity, lawlessness, chaos, divisions, violence, failures, destruction, violence and every other kind of evil is the result. We need to remember that all good in this world is worked through the love of our spirits, and love can only be built on truth, can only exist and thrive through the spirit’s fulfillment of God’s just, equitable, humble ways and laws. For God created life to exist and thrive according to these immutable principles. And, just as no one can ignore or change the laws of gravity, without suffering dire consequences, we also cannot ignore or change God’s laws of love, without suffering dire consequences. Without the spiritual, moral, just, equitable ways of love which God ordained to keep individuals and corporate bodies alive and well, nothing else functions well in our lives. So the spirit cannot be ruled by the flesh. Always, a spirit must rule over its flesh.
We must have nothing to do with those who abuse the Bible for their own selfish purposes of their flesh, and cast out all who twist the meanings of God’s words for comfort and the recreation of the flesh. Those who place the needs and wants of their flesh first, but ignore the needs of their spirits to hear and heed God, cannot be included in the works of our churches. And we cannot join in any kind of works with Satan’s fake churches, who want us to think the mind of flesh should interpret God’s words in the ways that flesh desires, while totally ignoring the meanings which God intended His own words to bear. They want us to think their existential interpretations, used to support delusions and lies for the sakes of their flesh, for the survival and comfort of the flesh alone, are valid forms of Christianity, and they are churches who worship God as we do. But know this, true Christianity does not ever teach anyone to fall for this temptation. Never let the flesh rule over one’s spirit and life.
Against the lies of this temptation, Jesus declared: “It was written, with the effect that it cannot be undone, ‘A person will not live upon bread alone, but upon every utterance continuously departing through the mouth of God’” (Mat. 4:4, ALT, from: Γέγραπται· Οὐκ ἐπʼ ἄρτῳ μόνῳ ζήσεται ὁ
ἄνθρωπος, ἀλλʼ ἐπὶ παντὶ ῥήματι ἐκπορευομένῳ διὰ στόματος θεοῦ, SBLGNT). Note how Jesus began with the perfect passive form of γράφω. Jesus and devout Jews, like Matthew, used this perfect form of γράφω in an ecclesiastical manner to focus on the Scripture’s irrevocable standing and effects. It indicate that God’s Word cannot be undone, reminds us that Scriptures are true and remain immutable forever. Then the present participle, ἐκπορεύομαι, bears a durative and current aspect, indicating that God is now uttering words from the mouth of His Spirit to our spirits, as an ongoing, ever-present gift to us. Words from God were not granted to us only in the past, when the Scriptures were written. Rather, they are also being granted to our spirits always, at the present time.
The Spirit of our Creator continuously speaks to our elect hearts. So, if our spirits do not manage our shouting minds of flesh, when it panics or is distracted by shiny bobbles, the flesh will manage itself and will not let our spirits hear God’s Spirit. For our flesh cannot hear God, nor will it let our spirits hear Him. And God will seldom shout louder than the flesh, nor louder than the sellers of sin in the markets of Satan’s world order. Nevertheless, Jesus is always near to us, always offering His wise counsel. He never stops trying to teach true concepts to our spirits, all that we need for abundant life, Page 195
and in a voice loud enough for our spirits to clearly hear and comprehend. If we silence our minds of flesh, we will be able to hear “every utterance continuously departing through the mouth of God.”
Now, some say this temptation of the flesh was accompanied by a provocation of Jesus, an attempt to make Him prove that He was the “Son of God,” through the pride of flesh. Yes, Satan definitely does provoke us to act through pride, and his non-elect children also tempt us through vain pride as well. But Jesus’ mind of flesh was fully aware that the Spirit in Him was indeed God. Likewise, the devil also knew this too, without a doubt, and trembled. And the kind of pride which claims to have an inside connection to God always has a spiritual element to it, since the amoral flesh actually has only the kind of pride which we might call self-esteem, that which allows the flesh to get its own way through physical power and carnal authority. So a wormy little demon’s attempt to stir up the spiritual pride of Jesus, when these two spirits were alone together, while both knew the Spirit in Jesus was God, seems ridiculous. And I do not believe the devil was appealing to the pride of flesh.
Now every Jew knew that the term “Son of God,” in the context of an individual standing out from all other people, referred to the Creator Spirit’s dwelling in a body of human flesh. For, since God is a Spirit, and nothing like the Greek and Roman gods, He obviously could never bear a human child through copulation. The only way one could be a uniquely begotten human being who is thee “Son”
of God is if God Himself chose to become the life-giving Spirit in that person. Of course, Jews also believed that all elect human beings on earth had spirits which were the children of God, born of His very Spirit, “breathed” into existence from within His very Spirit. Thus, all the elect were also called
“sons of God,” both males and females, since all elect spirits were heirs of God’s kingdom, just as
“sons” of the flesh were heirs of their fathers’ estates. Even the elect females were heirs, included among the “sons of God” (υἱοὶ τοῦ θεοῦ), in the sense that God was the Father of their spirits, which cannot have any gender. For masculine Greek words like υἱός were gender neutral terms in this case.
Nevertheless, none but the true Messiah could be a unique individual called “thee Son of God,” or
“Son of thee God,” where a par excellence article is implied. Only Jesus is the one and only God in a human body, which is what the devil was calling Jesus as he tempted Him. Also, the Greek particle
“εἰ” does not always mean “if,” but simply indicates conditionality, and can be interpreted as “since”
in a conditional statement. So, when the devil began his temptation with “Εἰ υἱὸς εἶ τοῦ θεοῦ,” he was saying that Jesus should turn the stones into bread “since” He was the Messiah, Immanuel, God dwelling in a body of flesh. He knew God would not stand by to let His body die before His mission was completed. But Satan’s main focus during this temptation was to have the needs and desires of the flesh rule over the decisions of His Spirit of God, to have the mind and body of flesh usurp the Spirit’s authority over His earthly life, and have God submit to the flesh. Satan was trying to get Jesus’ mind of flesh to act independently, apart from the will and management of His Spirit, even though His Spirit was God Himself. The point of Satan’s temptation was to encourage Jesus’ body to walk only according to its own mind of His flesh, then force the Spirit of God to do whatever was necessary to keep that flesh alive. And that devil’s kingdom is still doing this today, trying to get our minds of flesh to ignore our spirits, so we do not walk according to the minds and wills of our spirits.
But how do we walk according to our spirits? And how do we avoid walking according to our flesh?
The answer lies in Christ’s response to the devil, when He paraphrased Deuteronomy 8:3, when He simply proclaimed: “A person will not live upon bread alone, but upon every utterance continuously departing through the mouth of God.” When every devout Jewish reader of Matthew’s Gospel, as well as every mature Gentile disciple of Jesus, heard this response, they remembered God’s words spoken through Moses, the prophet, to Israel after they wandered for forty years in the wilderness: Page 196
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“You shall remember all the way which Yahweh your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, t hat H e might humble you , to prove you, to know what was in your heart, w
hether you would keep H is commandments , or not. He humbled you, and allowed you to be hungry, and fed you with manna, which you didn’t know, neither did your fathers know; that H
e might teach you that man does not live by bread only, but man lives by every word that proceeds out of Yahweh’s mouth” (Deut. 8:2-3, WEB).
Here God’s people were to look back at how their God took care of all their needs when they passed through the wilderness, through crisis after crisis, through hunger, thirst and constant danger, through nature’s storms and hardships, facing hostile nations who saw them as worthless things, only useful for plundering. God allowed and even caused the people to face death through a lack of food and water, but always came through in the very end. So God did to them exactly what Jesus was doing to His own body of flesh. God was teaching the people of Israel to walk according to the trust of their spirits in Him. But the entire generation of Israel—all except Moses, Joshua and Caleb—eventually died on that long forty-year trek. Only the children born to them remained. So all these children of Israel, all who were there with Moses on the day he uttered the above words from God, had known nothing but the “humbled” life Moses spoke about. Their entire lives experienced their own inability to provide for themselves, their need to trust in the providence of God. And, if they learned nothing else throughout their lives, this was enough. Of course, Moses himself spent his youth in relative opulence. Yet he lived a humble and simple life of a shepherd for about fifty years before he began this journey with Israel into the wilderness. Then he too suffered all their troubles with them, as they carried their burdens in the hot sun for that hard forty years. Likewise, Joshua and Caleb walked with Israel for forty years in this forge of life, in ways that strengthened their faith in God’s love.
All this hardship and trouble was for one purpose, “that He might teach” them. They were humbled so that God might teach them “that man does not live by bread alone,” but rather “by every word that proceeds out of Yahweh’s mouth.” Man does not live so that his flesh may survive and possibly gain some worthless pleasures, but so his spirit might learn to love in deep, just and wise way, according to all that God’s Word teaches his spirit. And, by teaching this to them, God wanted them to prove, to themselves, that His loving commandments or concepts were the true treasures of their elect hearts, that the desires of their spirits had matured and grown to be like His desires, that their spirits in their hearts now honestly wanted to fulfill and practise the wise and just love that they discovered in God’s heart through their experiences in life. These people were not to be like the pagans, not to live according to the desires of their flesh. Rather, their spirits learned to lovingly rely upon God.
Rich pagans, like the Egyptians who enslaved Israel’s parents, used the sword to steal all the food and goods their owned people produced, so they could hoard it for themselves. They demanded that the people obey them and serve their desires of the flesh, or die by the sword. Then they used their stolen wealth to buy even more soldiers, for their own “security,” in order to ensure that they could continue to the wills of their selfish flesh upon all who might rebel against their illicit and irrational claims of ownership over their siblings in the family of mankind. They needed violent psychopaths to help them manipulate and control their slaves, because they knew their evil would be resisted.
But God never wanted those sons of the devil to believe the lie that they could own anything, much less their siblings in their family of mankind. Rather, as we see in all His natural creations, God has granted all to all, so each can receive as much as each needs, while all is shared by all. God calls all human beings to live much like the animals, but as the tenders of earth’s garden and as those who take responsibility for all the animals they “name.” And this is why God gave Israel manna in the wilderness, but only allowed each to take as much as each needed for that day. If one took more than Page 197
what one needed for that day—if one chose to hoard enough for two or more days, just so that one did not need to go out and gather food the next day, together with all the others—then God caused that hoarded manna to rot by the next morning, with a stench that made one’s home odious to all who entered it. In this way, each had to share the simple task of going out into the bright morning fields, meeting with one another, communing with God and each other, enjoying nature and their fellowship with others, so all might eat all that they needed for that day. In all this, the one who needed more would receive more, and the one who needed less would also have just enough too.
During that forty years in the wilderness, God taught Israel about equity and justice, by forcing them to experience the communal sharing of simple, joyous times, in ways which cemented their loving relationships with one another and with God. In time, the elect spirits among them learned to grow in joy and live, with a high praise for God and faith in God’s words. Clearly, the terrifying miracles God worked against their enslavers in Egypt, through the warning prophecies of Moses, did nothing to teach them about God’s just and loving ways. Almost all who witnessed those incredible signs and wonders remained faithless, and lacked even the most basic faith in God’s love, power and words. A miracle, no matter how big, could never instill saving faith in any of their spirits. Even when God parted the massive depths of the Red Sea, so they could flee from their deadly enemies, and even after they watched as God closed those waters to drown their impotent enemies, it did not teach their spirits to trust God’s ways. But the simple, modest, humbling, equitable life of working together did.
The fact is that we see the power of God maintaining the entire universe through His rational will and power, as well as all the complex and logical ecosystems of life in it, every day. And that is a miracle of scope and scale far beyond parting the Red Sea, certainly a greater sign and wonder than turning stones into bread. Yet the fact remains that our dull, amoral minds of flesh see nothing of God in all that surrounds it. Only our spirits can see the Spirit of God, and only if our spirits are made in God’s image, as His elect children, and only if our elect spirits are awake and actively managing our lives. Our elect spirits are only ever able to perceive the beauty, majesty and glory of all that exists around us after our flesh is humbled, after we fall into the passing of time which God ordained for all, and live in the timing of God’s heartbeat throughout His creation. If our flesh lives simple, modest, humbling, equitable lives, in communion with God and His people, our spirits can see God and their spirits, can love and be loved in an abundant life. And, throughout most of human existence, most people lived like this. Only during the last millennium were most people on earth forced to live in humanistic societies ruled by hierarchies of psychopaths, who stubbornly prevent them from fleeing into the wilderness, in the same way the Pharaoh tried to stop Israel from getting to know their Creator God and learning His ways. However, those who are learning God’s ways are now being called, and will soon leave those enslavers, after the world order’s economies are crushed.
This godly life of communion with God and His people is what Jesus referred to when He said: “A person will not live upon bread alone, but upon every utterance continuously departing through the mouth of God.” Jesus was telling His mind of flesh, which represented the minds of flesh managed by the elect spirits who dwell in Him, that He was going to live and die according to the wise, loving and godly commands of His Spirit, not according to the needs and desires of His flesh. Jesus was telling His mind of flesh, as well as us, to live for the moments of life He grants to our spirits each day, those times in which God teaches us His ways, or trains us to apply His ways rightly, so we might build up just love in our spirits, the kind of love that is found in Him, our God. Yes, we will experience many times when the lives of our temporary flesh are threatened, or draw near to death, when the needs of our flesh shall not be satisfied. Then God will decide whether or not He will save our flesh for a time, so we may live to learn more about His ways through more life in the flesh. But, Page 198
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if God does not save our flesh, if He decides to gather us into our permanent spiritual bodies and into our everlasting home, so be it. In the meantime, while we live in this flesh, He will teach our spirits through the simple things of flesh. For this life in flesh on earth is for the teaching and training of the minds of our spirits, not for the teaching and training of our minds of flesh. All flesh is appointed to die, then vanish forever, when God destroys the material universe. But God appointed our spirits to learn about His kind of just love through our common, daily interactions with Him and each other.
As Jesus teaches His loving ways and laws through our very ordinary and daily lives with others, we learn to respect the lives of others, to listen to them, to see through the veneer of their outward flesh, into their very souls. Then we begin to love them. Or, when we walk out into the natural creation, to discover all that He wrote into it, it takes us much time, as well as the silencing of our flesh, to truly understand its intricate wisdom from God. We need our spirits to hear Jesus as He explains how all works together for a common purpose, for the good of all, even the parts of nature that warn us about evil. Then, as we sit alone to pray, we hear Jesus reiterate His teachings, revealing the truths He has taught us through all the simple joys shared with Him and our loved ones, as well as through all the works, anxieties and hardships we shared together. It is not big events, but little ones that teach us.
In a simple conversation with our loved ones, our spirits should turn to God, to hear His voice, to apply what He teaches our spirits about love. Jesus tells our hearts when to remain silent and listen for the real reasons behind His words, so we may also hear other souls, not merely the words they utter. Jesus tells us what others need to hear, and how they need to hear it. Jesus tells our spirits when we need to command our flesh to speak, and when to hear their words for our spirits’ education. His Holy Spirit invites us to speak words of consolation and comfort in love, or words of firm rebuke in love. Jesus prompts us to rise up and take action for the good of all, through love, or when to nullify evil and lies. All such things are very tricky matters, and learned through many errors. Yet we must learn to seek Jesus in every encounter with our loved ones, throughout every hour of every day, so we might build up the just love of our spirits, so our spirits might grow mature in Him. Even when we are old and have learned more than some others, our spirits are still just ignorant little infants who shall surely require the counsel of Christ’s Holy Spirit during all our daily interactions with our loved ones, even all the strangers we meet. To grow inwardly alive and spiritually mature, so God will not place our spirits in a deep sleep after the death of our flesh, so our spirits might remain fully awake and walk with Jesus at the gates of heaven until the final judgment, we must practise letting our spirits fully hear and heed “every utterance continuously departing through the mouth of God.”
If anyone wants to learn how to walk according to one’s spirit, and how one’s spirit is to regard one’s flesh, one can look at the words of Paul, the apostle: “I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content in it. I know how to be humbled, and I know also how to abound. In everything and in all things I have learned the secret both to be filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in need. I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me. However you did well that you shared in my affliction” (Phil. 4:11-14, WEB). Paul also taught: “But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we certainly can’t carry anything out. But having food and clothing, we will be content with that. But those who are determined to be rich fall into a temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful lusts, such as drown men in ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some have been led astray from the faith in their greed, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows” (I Tim. 6:6-10, WEB). Love requires us to live a simple, modest life, taking only what we need for our life and works of our flesh. We are to be content with equitable living, forsaking all greed and selfish ambition, spurning all glory of the flesh.
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So many fall to this first temptation of the flesh, which appeals to its demands for its own needs and desires. And so few of us are content. So few maintain a steadfast joy in our hearts, with much praise for God through a deep love for Him and those elect whom He has brought into our lives, even with praise for the non-elect we must war against. So few are learning to love one another, to equitably and justly share things of the flesh, in order to wisely build up families and communities according to the principles of God-like love. Now the end times are drawing near. And this will be preceded by world-wide earthquakes with meteors striking the earth, when all nations and economies of the world shall fall, so the great revival can begin. So now it is time to learn to resist this temptation.
Now it is time to walk according to the spirit and wisely manage our minds of flesh, to be content and share all our excess, to work together in one mind with one purpose, for the goal of life in Jesus.
Christ’s Second Temptation
Of course, if Satan fails with the first and most common traditional kind of temptation, he usually tries the second traditional kind of temptation next. That is, the devil normally tries to convince one’s flesh that, if it could obtain esteem, power and status in his unjust world order, by serving him and his kingdom, then one will accomplish much good for oneself, or even for others, through one’s own fame, authority and influence. Yet Satan did not try this kind of temptation next with Jesus. Rather, for the next temptation, Satan went straight to the third traditional kind. That is, Satan appealed to the pride of physical life. That demon tried to get Jesus’ mind of flesh to believe it was a god who could control its own destiny, even to the point of being able to manipulate God Himself. This is not as common as the kind of temptation which appeals to the strong desires of our eyes of flesh. But, if the devil can delude the flesh in this way, through the pride of the flesh, he can also cause a soul to commit the worst of sins, as the flesh tries to rule over every aspect of one’s own life. So he tried to lure Christ’s flesh with the pride of its own life, to make His earthly flesh think it was its own god.
This temptation involves the building up of a carnal self-esteem, into a god-like view of self. Now this kind of temptation is not effective for everyone. In fact, it is can only be applied to minds of flesh which are addicted to some kind of religion, even atheistic humanism. And it works especially well on minds of flesh managed by non-elect spirits who learn about the real Creator God, and turns them into the worst kind of murdering monsters. So, if this temptation is effective, the results can be extremely gratifying to Satan’s ruthless and unjust heart. For the psychopathic hypocrisy it causes among the religious non-elect who fall to this temptation is the very best way to slander God’s name.
Then these religious non-elect can also be employed by the devil to deceive elect souls, to turn them away from the Father of their spirits. So here the devil lured the flesh of Jesus—which was still very weak and not yet able to think clearly, not yet fully able to be properly managed by the Spirit of God in Jesus—toward pride, to make His mind of flesh believe it was the god of His life. The body of God was not only tempted to make demands against the Spirit of God inside it, but also against the heavenly Father as well. Satan wanted that weak, almost unconscious mind of flesh to rebel against the God who caused it to starve, to usurp control over itself, and march in prided off the pinnacle of the temple into thin air, to force God to save it from certain death as it fell to the pavement below.
Satan took the body of Jesus with himself into the “holy city” of Jerusalem, then stood Him on the highest part of the temple, which was the parapet of the very high building called the Holy of Holies, possibly more than 500 feet (more than 150 metres) above the pavement on one of its sides. Since the devil was tempting Jesus’ body and mind of flesh, Satan did not transport the Spirit of Jesus there, to “spiritually” tempt Him. For God allows Satan and his minions to tempt the flesh alone, although sins of the flesh affect the spirit. But Jesus’ Spirit of God remained in and with His body.
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Now the devil did not lead the flesh of Jesus out of the wilderness, into Jerusalem and up some stairs to the top of the temple. Besides, there likely were no stairs up to the top, and Levitical guards would have stopped Him from entering the temple, if He did walk there. Nor would the devil fly His body to the pinnacle of the temple. Rather, the devil would have instantly transported His body to the top of the temple, something like “teleportation” in science fiction films. For, although spirits, like Satan, do not consist of any physical matter and energy which occupy space or time in this material universe, all spirits are far more solid and powerful than anything in material existence. And a spirit can be any number of places in the material world at the same time, or go from one place to another instantly. And spirits can easily take physical matter and energy with them, to anywhere they might want to go in the material universe, and do this instantly. Of course, God bears the power to limit a spirit in any way He desires, and can even confine it to a physical place in the universe. Or God can allow a spirit, like Satan, to go instantly go anywhere in the world and take His physical body with him. Therefore, the devil likely did not cause Jesus’ body to simply imagine that it was standing on the pinnacle, but actually took His body to that physical location. But Satan did not take Christ’s Spirit to the temple, just His body. Then the Spirit of God in Jesus’ body would have taken itself there, to be with His body. It was actually not difficult for Satan’s spirit to transport the actual body of Jesus to the top of the temple, certainly not impossible, as some seem to think. And Satan would have needed the actual body of Jesus to be physically there, on that pinnacle, since he wanted the mind of Christ’s flesh to be deluded into thinking it could be a god who can manipulate God’s will.
So the devil physically placed the body of Jesus on top of the temple, on a narrow wall where that body had to take great care to keep its balance, lest it fall and die. And Satan chose to stand Jesus’
body above the most sacred place that flesh on earth could possibly go, on the Holy of Holies, where God’s presence promised to always reside for the sake of His priesthood of Israel. Thus, if Jesus fell to His death there, it would desecrate the holiest place in the world, since a dead body is considered unclean in the presence of the life-giving God. No human corpse was ever brought into the temple grounds, much less intentionally killed there, upon the porch of the Holy of Holies. So more was at stake here than the mere death of His body. The holiness of God in His temple, and the sanctity of all Israel was threatened. That devil knew this, and this is why he chose this place. For surely God would need to obey the demands of that mind of flesh, if it chose to make its body jump off that roof. For God would be forced to prevent Himself and His temple from being defiled. Then, of course, if it were possible for Jesus to sin, the salvation of the world’s elect and the very purpose of heaven’s existence was also in jeopardy. This is the ultimate goal of Satan in all three of his temptations, to ruthlessly sabotage all true religion, to hinder all works of the real Creator God.
When Satan told Jesus to take a “leap of faith,” he quoted God’s Word, to encourage Jesus’ flesh to commit this sin. The devil quoted God’s Word in exactly the same way many preachers do in their churches today, to get their people to tempt and test God, to get their people to try and manipulate God’s will by taking “a leap of faith.” Fake preachers often quote the Bible to prove that this sin is not sin. For their spirits have learned this trick from their hellish father. So this temptation should be very familiar to most people today, especially to those who have been in any “Faith Movement”
churches. This is the deception Satan preached: “Since you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.
For it is irrevocably written, ‘Because He will command His angels for your sake,’ and, ‘They will lift you upon [their] hands, lest you might strike your foot against a stone’” (Mat. 4:6, from: Εἰ υἱὸς
εἶ τοῦ θεοῦ, βάλε σεαυτὸν κάτω· γέγραπται γὰρ ὅτι Τοῖς ἀγγέλοις αὐτοῦ ἐντελεῖται περὶ σοῦ καὶ ἐπὶ
χειρῶν ἀροῦσίν σε, μήποτε προσκόψῃς πρὸς λίθον τὸν πόδα σου, SBLGNT). Of course, the devil did not care whether or not God would actually send His angels to keep Jesus from dying, and to Page 201
preserve the holiness of the temple. That was irrelevant to Satan. The only thing he was hoping to accomplish was to get the mind of flesh in Jesus to become the lord and master of Jesus’ life. Then, if Jesus’ mind of flesh cast its own body off the tower, sin would rule, even if that body survived.
When we look at the preaching of Satan, we find that he accurately and precisely quoted the first part of verse 11 and all of verse 12 from Psalm 91, exactly as it was written in the Septuagint, which was the “authorized” Greek version of the Bible in the world at that time, the version used in most Jewish churches back then. It was a version of the Bible that was as important to them as the King James version is to some English-speaking churches today. Thus, to lure the flesh into sin, Satan quoted real Bible verses from an authorized version of the Bible, just as preachers quote versions of the Bible in the native tongues of their people today. But Satan, and those whom he has appointed as the human heads and human gods of his false churches, misuse and abuse the Bible. They quote it solely to deceive, to make people think their false doctrines bear God’s authority, by pretending that God’s Word teaches those lies, while they hide God’s intended meanings of His words from them.
Like the devil, those fake preachers want to make the sins they are promoting appear to be God’s will, through the supposed “authority” of their false interpretations and misapplications of God’s Word, even as they rant against and nullify all God’s own intended meanings of His own words.
So it was not the Septuagint’s translation that was the real problem here. Rather it was the devil’s false handling of Scriptures, the way he used God’s Word to deceive a mind of flesh, which was the real problem. And any kind of false teaching is a sin of the third order. It is an abuse of God’s name, by misusing and twisting His words to pretend that His power and authority will uphold one’s false interpretation or misapplication of His words. And this is a sin far worse than murder. First, notice how verse 11 in the Septuagint actually says more than what the devil quoted. The entire verse in the Septuagint is actually: “He will command His angels for your sake, to thoroughly guard you in all your paths” (Ὅτι τοῖς ἀγγέλοις αὐτοῦ ἐντελεῖται περὶ σοῦ, τοῦ διαφυλάξαι σε ἐν πάσαις ταῖς ὁδοῖ
σου). So Satan conveniently left out the second half of the verse, which tells why God commands His angels for our sakes. God’s purpose is “to thoroughly guard” us in all we experience throughout our walks in life, in all the paths we might take. And God principal concern is safety or well-being of our spirits, that is, how pure, just, honest, wise and loving our spirits will remain. So the safety of our temporary bodies of flesh is a secondary matter. Also, the “angels” He sends from heaven are spiritual beings, not physical beings. Angels are messengers from God, who speak His words of counsel to our spirits. Thus, this important bit of context implies that God guards our spirits, not just our flesh. Both our flesh and spirits have God’s protection, but never so our flesh can sin against the will of our God. His protection, through His angels, is for unexpected events of life, for unforeseen circumstances during our walks in life, and is primarily to keep our spirits loving and wise in Him.
Furthermore, the context of the entire Psalm indicates the same thing too. This was a Psalm of David about God’s protection of his life. Therefore, because it is personally about David, it could also be taken as a Messianic Psalm as well, since the Messiah, still in David, was surely also to receive this same protection, and more. For the Messiah, like David, also dwelt in the “secret place of the Most High,” through His trust in God, which made God His refuge and fortress. The Messiah truly dwelt in that “secret place” more than David or anyone who ever lived, since His Spirit is one with God and is God, a Person of the God existing outside of time and space, who is three Persons at once.
Thus, the trust in God from Jesus’ Spirit was plenary, without equal. Thus, God would deliver Him from any snares or traps set by His enemies, keep Him safe from deadly diseases, from terrors of the night or arrows in the daytime. God would always be with Him in times of trouble and deliver him from all harm until His appointed time. Likewise, this psalm was also about God keeping us safe Page 202
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from all harm too. But it clearly had nothing to do with God serving us according to the wills of our own flesh, not in the way the devil attempted to apply this Scripture, nor as churches now apply it.
Our minds of flesh are not the lords and owners of our spirits. Rather, our spirits are the lords and stewards of our flesh. The minds of our spirits are to manage our minds of flesh in all matters of life, not the other way around. Nor can the minds of our flesh ever presume to manipulate God, as the gods of God, never in the way Satan and his fake churches teach. Our wills and emotions of flesh can never possess any kind of “faith power,” nothing that can manipulate circumstances and other people for its own benefit. To believe such a delusion is tantamount to declaring oneself to be a god, even a god who is able to control the will of the real Creator God. But back here in reality, we know that, if any think this way, then God has already handed them over to Satan, and the devil already has deluded them with the worst kinds of darkness. Anyone who begin to esteem oneself in this way is not only arrogant, but also spiritually stupid beyond measure, and serving as a faithful servant of Satan for his vile kingdom. This is the same kind of sin practised by all who call themselves the heads of churches, or vicarious Christs. All who believe they are able to control their own destinies, and those who think they can even control the destinies of other people, are blind fools committing this sin, and are merely mindless puppets of Satan, minions in his world order. And those who think eternal salvation can be worked through wills of their flesh are the most darkened souls on earth.
God is a “wild” God, totally beyond domestication. No one can train God to obey one’s own fleshy will. God does whatever He wills, whenever He wills to do it. And God created all earthly time in the beginning, in one moment. All the past, present and future has been predestined from the very first nanosecond that this material space-time continuum began to exist. All this was intentional, for the purposes of the Father of all elect human spirits passing through this earthly time. God created this temporary physical place to teach and train His elect children, so their spirits would seek Him, would learn to love Him and His ways. And soon all elect spirits will fully love and cherish Him, more than the angels in heaven, once all have been exposed to what is not His holy, loving attributes found on earth, and after they can compare these defects with the true attributes of their Creator. All His elect children will learn to cling much harder to the loving good in God, after seeing loveless evil. Then, as His beloved learned to fulfill His ways, through this greater appreciation for them, they will grow more like Him, better able to lovingly serve His eternal home of heaven with Him.
Think of how confused, conflicted, divided, ruthless, violent, deadly and dark this earth would be if God’s stewards all chose to be their own gods and pretended to own lands and things of this earth, instead of serving their siblings in mankind through just and God-like love. If we all allowed Satan’s chosen psychopaths to call themselves heads, leaders, kings and gods of the people, and let them force their own ever-shifting wills of the flesh upon the people, there would be nothing but merciless swords to keep order, as one god’s will of the flesh clashed with the other’s. Chaos, lies, factions, distrust, hatred, destruction, starvation, war and despair from Satan himself would rule over all the lands. And, if any remained humble in Christ, and still had a spark of love left in their hearts, these would be murdered for the sakes of all the manipulated, blind and mindless masses serving demons.
This kind of temptation—this deluding with the pride of life in Satan’s world order, the kind of pure arrogance that values worthless wealth, status and power—inevitably leads to the worst kinds of sins. And the more people who fall into this delusion, the more death and destruction it causes. Once a religious person thinks one can place faith in oneself, whenever one trusts oneself to exert control over one’s own salvation and course of life, and rescue oneself from God’s judgment on the final day, that person will no longer willingly hear any truth or wisdom from the real God Himself. For every humanist, every human god, wants to define all truth for oneself. Each manufactures one’s Page 203
own personally desired truths in one’s own mind of flesh, and will totally disregard any physical and spiritual realities whenever it suits one. Or, if one is not capable of adequately deluding oneself, then one will let some other human god do it for one. One will place all one’s faith in some other human god’s delusions, in another human god’s invented truths, simply because that one’s lies appeal to the lusts of one’s own flesh. In this way, charismatic wanna-be human gods take over the lives of many people, and define truths for all. So the laws and ways of many dupes become one human god’s own self-serving principles. But all those invented laws and ways are always entirely lacking any kind of real wisdom, and have absolutely no ability to preserve, guard and benefit the people, nor the rest of God’s creation. Therefore, the ways of that human god will only provide a short-term gratification of the flesh, with devastating and deadly long-term bad effects for the people and God’s other creations.
When a people fall to this kind of temptation, and arrogantly believe they are human gods in control of their own destinies, they all grow too inwardly empty and dull to think for themselves. And some become entirely mindless, deluded and enslaved by demonic spirits, which qualifies them to become the “great leaders” of the others. But not one of these human gods is able to effectively and wisely discern between good and evil, since they all are educated by human minds of flesh with darkened infantile spirits, and none have spirits taught by God Himself. All any of them can do is slavishly labour at worthless tasks for a wage, and all they ever think about is how to provide for needs and pleasures of their own flesh. None have any concern for how their futile works might be causing much death and destruction in the long term. For none are even willing to learn God’s wisdom for the good of all in all time, worked by the most rational mind in a soul, by the mind of an elect spirit.
Yet this is God’s will and first priority for His elect children. God never wants His elect on earth to live solely for their flesh, only according to the amoral thoughts and desires of their minds of flesh.
For all His elect are indeed potentially able and willing to let their spirits learn to live abundant lives, through the teaching and training provided by God’s Spirit. If elect spirits grow even slightly mature in God, they will soon realize that no real truth nor wisdom can originate from their irrational and impulsive minds of flesh. Truth and wisdom cannot even be comprehensively received by the flesh, and the flesh will not accept any moral or spiritual truths at all until its far more rational mind of the spirit has first received and understood it. A brain of flesh is almost completely incapable of fully digesting data into truly meaningful and wise information. First one’s more powerful mind of the spirit must process that data received from God and His creations. And, to do this, a spirit must be awakened by God, then taught to rightly interpret and apply that data by God’s Spirit. And, if God does this for His beloved elect child, the mind of that one’s spirit will remember this truth forever.
Only after God Himself teaches and trains an elect spirit, can that spirit provide a brief and partial synopsis of real truth and wisdom for its mind of flesh, and only as much as a feeble mind flesh is able to handle without turning away in frustration. Then that mind of flesh will forget that truth and wisdom in an instant. The very next moment, the flesh may act irrationally and hypocritically against those very principles of truth and wisdom, simply because the flesh will be distracted by a new lust it might feel, or by something shiny. And this is why our elect spirits must govern our thoughts and all the decisions we make in our souls, according to all the truth and wisdom the Holy Spirit of God has taught to our spirits. Those teachings from God in the minds of our spirits are sometimes called our inner consciences. And we need to live according to our inner consciences, not by what the world order teaches to our minds of flesh (which is called the outer conscience). Even scientific truths or the data used to make governing decisions must first be processed by the far more rational mind of an elect spirit, as that spirit is being assisted by one’s submissively serving mind of flesh. For, if a mind of flesh becomes the god ruling over one’s life, and silences one’s elect spirit, then even God’s Page 204
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Spirit, so it can have its own way, or possibly even rule over other lives, that flesh will always make foolish, destructive and deadly decisions. For the flesh is never be able to find nor apply any real truth nor any genuine wisdom. Rather, a mind of flesh always remain wilfully ignorant, so it will be able to continue its pursuit of its own needs and desires, just to maintain its delusion of being a god.
Thus, since most wanna-be human gods are unable to gain any real truth or wisdom for themselves, they begin to rely on the most arrogant, confident, self-esteeming human gods as their source for all their truths and wisdom. But all these most arrogant, confident, self-esteeming human gods are just deeply deluded narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths, who should be assigned to the most manual tasks in a community. For none of these kinds of people can ever be trusted to do any works which might affect the lives of other human beings. No matter how good the brains of flesh might be in these completely deluded, servile slaves of demons, their loveless and carnal desires will always seek to harm or kill the innocent, due to the slanderous lies that they tell themselves, lies originating from demons. Yet these worst of all souls always become the most highly esteemed gods in all the places where irrational souls worship themselves and let their minds of flesh suppress their spirits.
This is why the earth has seen so many ruthless despots foolishly build destructive, exploitative, psychopathic subject kingdoms within Satan’s world order, especially in the last few millenniums.
And, after Satan invented his sabotaging religion of humanism, life on earth grew worse each day, until most of this planet has become like that demon’s home in hell. Since the days of Babylon, when Nebuchadnezzar chose to believe the delusion that he had become the god of his own destiny, even the god who created and owned the world and its people (Dan. 4:30), many humanistic empires have laboured to establish the oppressive, unjust, ruthless and stupid kingdom of Satan’s “beast.” Each successive institution of human gods have taught the people that they are their own gods, but must be brutally ruled by the greatest and most psychopathic human gods, preferably in dictatorships where all are forced to worship those human gods. Then their chief human gods tell their dupes that they must torture and murder all those who do not faithfully serve those psychopaths, all who do not blindly follow the dictates of the human gods who willingly and faithfully serve Satan. And their dupes willingly kill for them, since they are stupid to the core, and become terrified that the “order”
created by their dictators, who serve only their own selfish ambitions, will be lost. Then their dark, empty, mindless, godless lives will fall into chaos. For their chief human gods kept them blind, deaf and dumb all their lives, so those dupes possess absolutely no ability to heed God and build up an abundant life of justice and love for themselves. So they seek a new psychopath to rule over them.
Therefore, once a hell on earth is formed by these humanists, Satan can perpetuate it for centuries.
Yet demons do not and cannot perpetuate their humanistic religion through secular powers alone, since humanism is a moral and spiritual rebellion against God and His ways. Because people have spirits, and because the owners of all wanna-be human gods are demonic spirits, humanism must always be promoted by spiritually oriented, false, evil and unjust religions. Thus, by the end of the first century, God allowed Satan to take over visible Jewish and Christian churches, all who had stopped worshipping Him, all who preferred to worship themselves as gods of their own destinies.
And, although the true church of God’s real elect continued to be taught and trained by Jesus in secret, these humanistic fake Jewish and Christian churches soon became the only visible churches in the world, or at least the biggest and most psychopathic churches in the world. So, for the last two thousand years, most visible churches have been fakes, with psychopathic human gods as their heads, though God’s Word clearly and irrevocably commands that He must be the only Head of every man. Of course, the invisible true church existed and was growing in the world at the same time. Some elect spirits heard God, learned to love in wiser and more just ways, then broadcast His Page 205
real truths into the world for more elect souls to hear. But, in outward appearances, which is all that Satan’s carnal children truly care about, only the fake humanistic religions held any worldly power.
Because most of the mindless, ignorant and unteachable souls taken captive by Satan and his filthy religion of humanism will readily believe the lie that they are gods who are able to rule over their own destinies, they will faithfully follow and obey all the laws and ways of the chief servants of Satan, in order to acquire their own fake salvation. And, of course, the psychopathic slaves of Satan who rule over their fake churches are in league with the psychopathic slaves of Satan who have been granted secular power in that devil’s world order. For both the religious and secular slaves help each other gain the devil’s rewards of money, status and power, which their own grant them for faithfully administering his lies and sins. Naturally, all the religious and secular minions of the devil blindly cause nothing but suffering and death, both for themselves and others. Still, they recklessly keep on torturing flesh and murdering souls for Satan’s kingdom, in the hope of obtaining the false promises of their owner. But Satan’s churches are actually much worse than their secular counterparts, since those fake churches speak lies and perform their crimes in the name of the real God. For, although their human heads and themselves are their principal gods, these irrational humanists also delude themselves into thinking they are serving a heavenly god too. Of course, they are always far too busy worshipping themselves to ever provide even a morsel of worship for any kind of a heavenly god.
Yet, remember, these dupes of Satan are totally incapable of thinking clearly, and are easily deluded.
So, whenever Satan appoints his enslaved, mindless human gods over his fake churches, he orders them to invent a heavenly god in their own minds of flesh, one that suits the lies and sins which that slave works for his owner. Then the devil commands that fake head of his demonic church to call that invented idol by all the names of the real Creator God. Thus, their mindless, irrational and often illiterate dupes often think they are worshipping the true, just and loving God, even as they esteem and serve that ruthless, vile aberration created in their human head’s mind of flesh. Now this may sound impossible to those who actually know the real God, because anyone who even reads one page of the Scriptures with understanding could instantly recognized that the heavenly gods of those churches are fake, and that the people are not really worshipping them at all. However, we must not forget to factor in the extreme stupidity of humanists. When demons control their minds of flesh and suppress their spirits, those enslaved dupes are able to believe anything, no matter how stupid it is.
We may also think that the people would realize that the heavenly gods of those fake humanistic churches cannot be the real, immutable God, since those fake churches frequently alter the character, nature and essence of their heavenly gods, whenever times might require a different kind of heavenly god for the exploitation and enslaving of their people. But their dupes never catch on. And this is primarily because, just as Satan did in this temptation of Jesus, the human heads of their churches also quote God’s Word, and for the same reason, to falsely “prove” that their lies are truths from God. They deceptively convince their people that their lies bear God’s blessing and authority. But, of course, their murderous and self-serving lies do not! Rather, those human gods are merely exegeting the Scriptures in ways taught by Satan, their father. And they do this to make their lies seem godly, to keep the elect among their dupes perpetually deluded. It is a trap to imprison elect souls in dark cells with thick walls of impenetrable delusions, with circular reasoning to keep inner doors locked tight.
Against all this, Jesus quoted only one verse from God’s Word: “You will not force the Lord God to prove Himself by subjecting Him to a test” (Mat. 4:7, ALT, from: Οὐκ ἐκπειράσεις κύριον τὸν θεόν
σου, SBLGNT). Her the future form of the verb ἐκπειράζω primarily means “to subject to test or proof, tempt” (BDAG3), and must be interpreted in context. It is found in the very common kind of exhortation, command or prohibition which uses a future tense, and therefore refers to the act of Page 206
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wilfully coercing God to save oneself. In this case, it is a test of God’s loyalty and love for oneself, forcing God to prove His obedience to one’s own carnal commands, by requiring God to rescue oneself from certain death as one deliberately and arrogantly leaps from a great height down to the stone pavement below. Jesus said we should not test God, should try to transform ourselves into the god of God and demand that God obey our frivolous and impulsive desires of the flesh. And Jesus quoted Deuteronomy, repeated a Scripture found after one of the most quoted passages in the Bible:
“Hear, Israel: Yahweh is our God. Yahweh is one. You shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. These words, which I command you this day, shall be on your heart ...
“You shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the peoples who are around you; for Yahweh your God in your midst is a jealous God; lest the anger of Yahweh your God be kindled against you, and He destroy you from off the face of the earth. You shall not tempt Yahweh your God, as you tempted him in Massah. You shall diligently keep the
commandments of Yahweh your God, and His testimonies, and His statutes, which He has commanded you. You shall do that which is right and good in the sight of Yahweh; that it may be well with you ...” (Deut. 6:4-6,14-18, WEB)
When Jesus quoted this, “You will not force the Lord God to prove Himself by subjecting Him to a test,” all the devout Jews hearing this would know exactly what He meant. Every devout Jew and every well-taught Gentile brought into the New Covenant church of Israel would have recognized this Scripture. Then Satan would have known it very well too, for the devils have all memorized all Scriptures in all versions of all languages, so they can more effectively distort and twist God’s words to serve themselves. But devils hate these authoritative teachings, since they require all to worship the one and only real Creator God alone, to serve Him as their only Lord and Head. Now look at the Hebrew word, nawsaw, in Deuteronomy 6:16. This verb meant “to test, prove.” Actually, here Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 6:16 from the Greek Septuagint. However, Jesus also knew exactly what even that Septuagint implied, which was exactly what the original Hebrew text implied. And, as all devout Jewish souls knew, when Israel thirsted in the wilderness, they “quarrelled, and ... tested Yahweh, saying, ‘Is Yahweh among us, or not?’” (Ex. 17:7, WEB). Israel was quarrelling with God Himself, not just with Moses and with those who spoke in God’s name. Then Israel demanded that God prove His faithfulness to their flesh. And this is essence of what that devil was trying to get the flesh of Jesus to do during this temptation. Satan wanted Jesus’ mind of flesh to believe his false doctrines, based on his mishandling of a fake “proof text” pulled from the Psalms, so the flesh would take
“take a leap of faith” to prove God’s servile obedience to the proud, impulsive whims of that flesh.
So now we need to know the difference between what some good teachings call a “leap of faith” and what Satan calls a “leap of faith.” Some call it a “leap of faith” when an elect spirit causes its body to act through trust in the concepts and words which one’s spirit receives from God, even if those godly and wise actions may be called evil and foolish by others, and even if those just and loving deeds may cost that elect one some loss of his or her valuable resources, time and efforts, or might cause one to physically suffer, possibly even die. If an elect person does truly just, loving works for God, in His name, and wisely, in the way one’s spirit is taught by God to do them, while under pressure from peers to avoid or cease those good works, it may be called a “leap of faith.” But it is clear that these works for God are never done to appease the demands, desires or pride of anyone’s own flesh.
Clearly, a biblical kind of “leap of faith” is not the kind taught by Satan and his churches. When Satan tells a mind of flesh to cast its physical body off a tall building for no good reason, and even in Page 207
a way that risks the desecration of the place where God promised to maintain His holy presence in the world, and one’s sole motive is to prove that God will obey the dictates from one’s mind of flesh, then it most definitely a great sin. For this is tantamount to thinking that one’s own body and mind of flesh can be the god of God. And that kind of delusion is indeed irrational, even completely insane!
How can a temporary, physical brain and body ever become a god who commands the uncreated, omniscient, omnipotent Spirit who is the one Creator God? How could any flesh think it could force God to serve its own self-serving, impulsive and rebellious desires? There is only one the flesh can think so irrationally and delude itself into thinking this way. First the flesh has to invent its own little and weak god in the likeness of oneself, only much smaller and less powerful. Then one must call that man-made idol by the names of the real God, until one is thoroughly brain-washed into thinking that idol is actually the real God. Then, finally, one’s little brain of flesh can believe that it can easily command that idol, which one calls thee God, to obey its carnal whims. Thus, all who tempt or test God commit the sin of idolatry, and actually break many first, second and third order laws of God.
In the eyes of God, and in the eyes of all wise souls, the sin of tempting or testing God is worse than the sixth order sins related to murder. For all attempts to manipulate or control God leads souls into a destructive arrogance, “quarrels” with God and one another, as each human god strives to own and rule over other humans, as each is determined to pursue one’s own carnal ambitions at the expense of all others. So these things invariably lead to criminal negligence causing the deaths of other siblings in the family of mankind, and many other kinds of murder. This treason against God, our King and Lawmaker, only destroys. Preachers crying out, “In Jesus’ name!” from their pulpits, in their own vain attempts to raise up racist, violent, fraudulent powers over their people are cursed to everlasting hell, because they throw the people into chaos and death for their own financial and political gain, and even dare to do this in God’s holy name. But how do they think the all-knowing and almighty God will bow to them and serve their own lusts, desires and pride of the flesh? Is this not a powerful delusion of Satan? Has God not already handed them over to the devil for the destruction of their flesh, through that devil’s power to completely delude their selfish hearts? Testing or tempting God, trying to force God to obediently and submissively serve the whims of one’s own flesh, is a stupid, deadly sin that we must never tolerate, for that kind of arrogance destroys everyone it can deceive.
Satan knows all this. Consequently, he calls all his false churches to practise this lie and destructive false doctrine of testing God by “taking a leap of faith.” First the devil redefines faith. He makes his dupes think faith is psyching up the emotions of one’s own mind of flesh, until it “believes” in its own power to force the power God to serve one’s carnal desires. In the meantime, demonic spirits keep the minds of elect spirits suppressed and silent. They keep the elect very busy in following the emotions of their flesh, so they cannot hear the inner consciences of their spirits, too distracted to let their spirits voice God’s counsel in the chambers of their souls. All those elect can experience are the lusts, desires and pride of their flesh, which they somehow think is the “free will” of their spirits. Yet it is merely the enslaved wills of their flesh vainly attempting to rule over God’s will, even in a way where none believe that God has any free will of His own—although God is the one and only Person who truly has free will. This delusion about “free will” is the cornerstone of Satan’s primary religion, the worship of self as one’s own chief god governing one’s own destiny, which was the original sin of the devil and all the fallen angels with him. And this worship of self is like the worship of the real God, since it involves the esteem and serving of only one god alone. However, this religion of Satan, humanism, thoroughly refined in the hell of Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism, leads only to hell.
Second, Satan then calls his deluded heads of his own churches to redefine God himself. The devil helps each human god of each church invent a new heavenly god in each one’s own dark and self-Page 208
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serving mind of flesh, then commands each to name that fake god by the same names given to the real God of the Bible. And it does not matter to these churches that each one’s theological doctrines define a totally different god for their people to worship, because the focus of each individual in each fake church is upon oneself, as one’s own highest god, as the only god able save oneself. So all of these churches belonging to Satan’s world order will cause their people to worship idols created in their own minds, but where all these fake heavenly gods resemble one another, for all these fake gods were created in the images of the preachers who invented them, and all those fake preachers were created in the image of their hellish father. So all those fake creator gods, named after the one true God of the Bible, are vengeful, lying, murderous, greedy, inequitable, unjust and unloving. Yet, since all their invented heavenly gods are alike, all Satan’s fake churches have no problem in making sinful compromises, so they can work together in ecumenical unions. Still, since each church always jealously guards its own property of duped slaves, their unions are always backstabbing and factious.
Third, Satan also commands each deluded “leader” of each fake church to pretend that he is the chief commander of the fake heavenly god he created for himself, while also making all others feel that they are “inferiors,” who are not able to rule over that fake god nearly as well as their “leader,”
whom Satan chose. And, since each fake preacher created that fake god in his own image, and can also alter the attributes of his own fake god whenever he desires, it is fairly easy for him to maintain this deception, to keep the people thinking he is the most powerful controller and ruler of their own church’s heavenly god. For, if a fake religious “leader” wants something, he simply declares that his fake “almighty” god of “the heavens and the earth” wants the people to give it to him. So they do.
And, after the people give him that thing, they all think that their heavenly god must surely obey their “leader,” because their god always gives him whatever he wants. Then, to maintain his status as the chief ruler of their heavenly god, he will always take credit for all that is successful in his church, or for all the vague fake prophecies he uttered, whenever they appear to be fulfilled. But, at the same time, he will always give some secondary kind of credit to his fake heavenly god too, so his dupes will continue to think he succeeds because he rules over the will of the “almighty” god he invented for them. Yet, if a church “leader” fails in any way, he can simply blame it on the people, and say that God did not grant that thing because of their “lack of faith.” Consequently, all “leaders” chosen by Satan have a pretty nice gig, albeit a totally unjust, exploitative and destructive one. For all those fakes are “free” to lie and sin with impunity, “free” to plunder the people as much as they are willing to do so. Still, their job is no better than that of a crime boss, since each fake pastor is also a slave of demons. For each fake pastor is forced to maintain his lies all day, every day, without a moment’s rest. And this is a painful and weary task. So, yes, Satan often rewards the vile blasphemies of these fakes, by granting them respect or even praise in his world order. But the devil also likes to see his children work themselves to death, as well as stab one another in the back. So each fake preacher is a virtual slave to the devil, nothing like the elders in a true church full of gifted elect. And fake pastors always need to watch their own backs, lest other servants of Satan might usurp their illicit authority.
Then there is the fourth and final way employed by the demons, so they can always provide new generations of blasphemers for their fake churches. That is, Satan tells his head slaves to teach all his other dupes in the fake church to continuously tempt the invented heavenly god of their church by taking “leaps of faith,” as often as possible. These fake pastors want to ensure that the first instinct of their people is to commit the sin of trying to rule over the heavenly god, and tell their people that their fake heavenly god always wants the people to make “leaps of faith,” particularly of the kinds that try to force their invented heavenly god to appease the lusts, desires and pride of their flesh.
They tell their people that, if they want to get rich, commit the blasphemous sin of taking “a leap of Page 209
faith” in a way that forces their fake heavenly god to make them rich. Then they preach that the only way this kind of “leap of faith” can fail is if one did not suppress the voice of one’s elect spirit enough to be ruled entirely by the psyched up emotions of fake faith in one’s mind of flesh. And these lying preachers are actually speaking the truth about this. For, if one makes one’s life into a total slave to the devil, by allowing his demons to rule over every thought in one’s mind of flesh, then the devil’s world order will reward one with some kind of illicit, exploitative, fraudulent kind of wealth. For money is Satan’s invention, and his world order gives it to whomever serves him most blindly and faithfully. So anyone who takes carnal pride in being able to rule over the heavenly god is rewarded by Satan. The problem is that, if any elect in those fake churches meet the actual God who created the heavens and the earth, they then assume that they must control Him in the same way those false churches and demonic pastors taught them. They assume this is what even the real God wants them to do, for their own wealth and health. So they fail completely in their worship of the real God, and refuse to believe that the real God can be useful for anything other than to make them healthy and wealthy. They are trapped in a mindset which is very difficult to escape from, and it will often take these brainwashed elect decades to comprehend even the basics of salvation and just love.
There is no greater pride of the flesh, during its physical life on earth, than placing faith in that arrogant delusion which believes one’s fictitious “free will” can save oneself from God’s wrath and condemnation, as well as cause oneself to enter heaven. This lie makes our God Jesus into a mere helper of a far greater god, a mere servant of oneself. It transforms oneself into authoritative judge of oneself, and assumes that the only one who holds the keys to the gates of heaven is oneself. But it is obvious that every human being has an amoral, weak, irrational and forgetful mind of the flesh, as well as a totally ignorant, infantile mind of the spirit. Therefore, logically, no human being can ever know enough, nor ever possess enough power, to save oneself from God’s condemnation. For not even one has enough knowledge nor power to teach and train one’s own eternal spirit until one’s own spirit is able to love in the same just, equitable, wise way that God Himself loves—even in a way that includes the infallible ability to see through every lie and correct it, or burn it away, so no lie will corrupt or destroy that love. And, if none are able to become perfect in this kind of love, then none can turn away God’s wrath! Furthermore, if none are ever able to make their own spirits perfect and complete in God-like love, then none are able to judge in the same just way that our God Jesus judges, through His immutable and perfect love for all whom He made able to repent into the truths He teaches to them. Also, since it is even more difficult to rightly judge oneself than to judge others, no infantile human spirit will ever be able to judge whether or not oneself qualifies for citizenship in God’s heaven. Besides, none but God Himself, the King of heaven, holds the authority to award or to remove anyone’s citizenship in His own kingdom, and He alone bears the keys to the gates of heaven too. So it is extremely presumptuous to think the “free will” of one’s temporary mind of flesh can choose to make oneself a citizen of heaven, and earn the keys to those gates of heaven through the rituals and works of one’s body of flesh. Now, since nothing in God’s Word, nor even in science, ever suggests the possibility of humanism’s doctrines of “free will,” let us leave those lies behind us.
When a sinner convinces one’s own mind of flesh to believe it will receive the forgiveness of all its sins by allowing its body partakes in a physical sacrament or ritual, exactly how can that one’s spirit be actually receiving forgiveness from the real Creator’s Spirit? If only the mind and body of flesh are involved in that ritual, while one’s spirit is suppressed by all the physical distractions for the mind and body of flesh, then how is the real God teaching truth to one’s spirit and by causing one’s spirit to repent into the that truth? And, without that repentance of the spirit into the real truth taught Page 210
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by the real Spirit of God, there can be no real forgiveness. So that physical ritual is merely a useless and worthless decoy of the devil, used to keep dupes focused on their own minds and bodies of flesh.
If a church claims that a physical ritual is more than a mere reminder of what God Himself actually does, did or will do, then the ritual is a fake. If a church claims its ritual “magically” causes God to do something—such as causes God to grant His forgiveness, causes God to accept one into His true priesthood of His church, causes God to recognize a covenant of marriage made between two spirits, or causes God to do anything else—then that ritual is making an impossible claim. For there is not one entity in heaven or on earth that can cause the almighty God to do anything! And an omnipresent and ubiquitous God, who created time and is not subject to time, never needs to hire a proxy to make His decisions for Him. God never needs a sinful, foolish human being to decide whether or not a person should or should not be forgiven, enter His true priesthood of the church, be recognized as having made a valid covenant of marriage, nor anything else. Therefore, all church rituals which claim to be done to cause God to do something are fakes. Those things are simply done so a mind of flesh can believe it will now be welcomed into the holy God’s eternal home of heaven, and not die.
But, if all those physical rituals do is create a strong delusion that absolutely fills the mind of flesh with self-gratifying pride, warm emotions and good feelings, in a way that suppresses an elect mind of the spirit from speaking truths it receives from God, then those physical rituals are actually sins.
They are evil because they hinder or outright stop the truths of God from being accepted by an elect spirit and expressed through one’s mind and body of properly managed, submissive flesh. The ritual is a fake no matter how good it made the flesh feel, even if a physical ritual is accompanied by good music and convincing rhetoric that appeals to the pride of the flesh, by making false claims about that ritual causing God to something which God does not ever do through a mind and body of flesh.
If the mind of one’s spirit plays no role in that ritual, and is, in fact, kept suppressed and silenced by the ritual, that ritual is a sin. Only a ritual that reminds one’s spirit about God, His works and His truths, in a way where God personally interacts with one’s spirit, where the Holy Spirit of God will directly counsel one’s spirit with His teachings, truths, wisdom and commands, is a biblical kind of ritual. And not one of those ever claimed to cause God to do anything. So, whether the delusion of a church ritual was performed by the highest order of a priest in a fake church, one dressed in the most expensive robes resembling those of pagan Roman priests, or by a man dressed in common clothing, it is nothing and absolutely worthless, even a sin which one’s need to repent from, into the truth. And if a physical ritual caused a good feeling of pride in a mind of flesh, and made one believe in oneself as the eternal god in control of one’s own eternal destiny, that is never a good thing! For tempting God and trying to usurp His sovereignty over one’s salvation involves all the worst kinds of sins, sins of the first three orders. And the reason why so many churches indulge in so much art, music, clothing and other pretentious things of the flesh, is to trick minds of flesh into thinking they can be their own gods, even gods who rule over the will of the real God. Of course, God created art, music and all else for our good. So their abuse of God’s good creations does not make those good creations bad. But we must wake up and see the real truths of God, so we can recognize when the devil and his minions are deceiving us. But we not be like those who decide to overcome the physical instruments of demonic deceptions with other physical counter deceptions. For, just because Satan uses art, music, clothing and other things of the flesh, it does not mean all such things are evil, as some false churches conclude, while use their own physical objects, or the absence of physical objects, to merely pretend to be holier than other deceivers. Rather, we know God created the flesh and things of the flesh to be good and very useful for an elect spirit who adeptly manages one’s own mind and Page 211
body of flesh, even very helpful in expressing the spirit’s love. Yet we cannot let the flesh rule our lives, nor use things of the flesh to deceive and delude our flesh, as Satan and his fake churches do.
When a head human god of a fake church tells a visiting soul to “take a leap of faith” to become a
“Christian,” that human god is really telling that soul to trust the desires of one’s mind of flesh, as it is being deceived with professional music and motivational gloss. And the purpose is to make that visiting soul into a slave, who trusts and serves no one but the human god who rules that church.
Then, when that head human god tells a captive slave in one’s own fake church to “take a leap of faith” by giving time, service, money and possessions to the church, even rent and food money, which God commands one to use for one’s own family, that money will be used to support that human god’s kingdom, and ultimately also used to support Satan’s kingdom of the world order. The entire lives of those dupes will be eaten up by the human head of the church, to feed the ego and desires of that human god and, ultimately, to serve Satan himself. Nothing is ever be used for the real God’s purposes, although those human gods love to confidently and falsely declare it is all for Him.
Then Satan and his slavish human gods of the false churches must also breed a great distrust against all outsiders and opponents, including other equally false churches, but especially against the one true church body of awakened elect. For false churches must keep their captive dupes from straying, and taking their money away, along with their serving hands. In fact, some fake churches will use so much lying slander against outsiders, and gaslight their own dupes so extensively, that their dupes cannot trust anyone except their enslaving owners in their deluded little church kingdom. Through their fear mongering lies and the villainization of all opposing truths, they effectively chain their dupes to themselves. A human god may even cause the dupes in his fake church to violently attack anyone who oppose him, especially the elect who voice genuine truths through love. These demonic human gods of fake churches will only allow their dupes to trust another governing body if that body faithfully serves Satan in a way that benefits themselves—that is, in the same way the fake churches enthusiastically supported the illicit, unjust and demonic governments of Hitler, Nixon and Trump.
So the human gods of fake churches start by telling their people to “take a leap of faith” in the most blasphemous ways possible, which causes their dupes to draw a line in the sand between themselves and all outsiders, but especially between them and God Himself. They must take a “leap of faith” to drive out those outsiders, all those people of different creeds, religions, races or cultures. But, above all, they must make themselves into enemies of God and all His honest elect children on earth. And they are often roused to violence, whenever necessary. As the dupes “take a leap of faith” to cast out all sources of reliable information and truth, so they trust only in the lies of Satan and the human gods that own them, they are called to “take a leap of faith” in even the stupidest things as well, to prove their faith in the devil and the ones he appointed as their owners. For slaves in demonic hierarchies must learn to obey blindly, without thinking a single rational thought. For instance, Hitler commanded his terrorized slaves to take drugs which allowed them to keep working mindlessly and without sleep, until those drugs killed them. Trump convinced his slaves and their children to remain unvaccinated as a test of their trust in his lies. So both of these psychopaths wanted their own dupes to make a “leap of faith” based on their own lies to prove their loyalty. Both murdered their own loyal dupes for the sakes of their own arrogant egos and to temporarily serve their selfish ambitions.
These fake churches and the demonic governments they promote for their own benefit, all teach their dupes to reject any truths that expose their hypocritical lies and their nefarious motives, including all kinds of biblical truths, scientific data, medical information, verified news reports and reliable government data derived from trustworthy and confirmed sources. For they must maintain the faith of their dupes, their belief in their obvious lies, no matter how stupid and self-destructive those lies Page 212
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might be. Each slave in their kingdom must “take a leap of faith,” must place all their confidence and trust in those obviously psychopathic church and government leaders whom Satan gave them as their ruthless owners. Then Satan’s chosen ones tell their human property that they must remain enslaved to them or else they will forfeit the “freedom” their owners provide for them. They must suppress and censor all real truth so the “real truth” of their lying leaders will be all that remains uncensored and freely spoken in their land. They need to oppress and murder all honest and good souls so only their exploiting, thieving, ruthless owners remain at liberty to sin with impunity. They must commit treason against every just form of government in order to become “patriots” of Satan’s world order.
So how does one fight against these psychopaths, to whom Satan grants vast armies of mindless minions, all of whom are willing to kill their own children for the self-destructive lies of their human and demonic owners? Well, first of all, we should realize that both those wanna-be human gods and their mindless minions are ruled by demons and ultimately by Satan himself. And that means no human power, except one that Satan chooses and empowers, will be able to defeat them, not unless that human power is not actually a human power. If even a minority of the elect are awakened by the real Creator God, so that their very spirits begin to receive truths and training directly from the Holy Spirit of that one God, their their power and wisdom will be from God. And, if Jesus chooses to gather those elect into His one true priesthood of Israel, where He remains their only Head, and where there are no identifiable hierarchies of men, those humans will become unstoppable in that God. For all of Satan’s hierarchical systems, with all their physical signs and human names written on their hands and foreheads, can only war against powers they can physically identify, never against a people of one wise mind and one loving purpose in Christ Jesus, our Lord and God. And God’s own power is always greater than that of Satan. God can confuse, confound and corrupt the plans and strategies of Satan and his minions at any time, and can even turn his selfish little hordes against one another within hours, causing them to destroy themselves. So the ultimate weapon against those powerful, demonic oppressors is not just “the truth,” but “thee truth.” Only genuine spiritual, moral, biblical kinds of truth, being effectively applied through God’s own wisdom, can crush the power of Satan in his kingdom of the world order. For only God remains firmly sovereign over the devil’s little subject kingdom, so only the kinds of truth He is willing to stand behind will invariably crush the lies of Satan and his minions. In other words, a land needs a true, biblical revival. There must be at least some elect, even just two percent of the lands population, who wake up and allow their spirits to be educated in the purest truths and wisdom of God, in a way that only His own Holy Spirit can provide. If any land wants to rid itself of demonic oppression by Satan’s appointed psychopaths, some of His elect must have spirits willing to hear and heed the real Jesus. Then His truths will not be silenced in their land and the lies of Satan’s kingdom will be burned away by God’s light. But, as long as a famine of God’s Word starves a land, there will be despotism and meaningless destruction.
At the core of all these destructive, vile “leaps of faith” taught by Satan and the puppet human gods which he ordains for all his fake churches, is the idea of “proving” that one’s mind of flesh rules over one’s own life, and even over the will of God, all for the sake of fleshy pride. Of course, in reality, one becomes a mere mindless, manipulated dupe owned by the devil and by other even more useless, worthless, parasitic human beings. Even the human gods whom Satan puts in charge of his fake churches are his mere unthinking slaves, without any wills of their own, and worked to death, night and day, without rest. They are so enslaved that they will bow before their inanimate possessions and slavish serve them too. They will sacrifice huge amounts of their time, energy, money and resources to their houses, cars and other possessions, proving that their possessions possess them. And Satan causes this kind of insanity in them, because that devil loves the irony of making them feel “free” by Page 213
granting them worldly things that enslave them. So these fools, with utterly slavish mindsets, either become ruthless in Satan’s service, or have nervous breakdowns. And both of things prove that they have weak, little, infantile human spirits. It proves they are not gods, just human slaves of the devil, whose wills are ruled by demons who are trying to destroy them and everyone around them. Yet all these fools remain so much under the thumb of demons, so deluded by spirits ruling the world order, that they still think they are great and grand, the mighty gods ruling their own destinies, as well as the owners of other human beings. Not one has the power to escape their own carnal and deluded egos. And the fake church leaders, who literally make themselves into the worst enemies of God through their blasphemies against His Holy Spirit, still take great pride in being “Christians” who knows the “real truth,” even though all their “real truths” are merely self-contradicting, irrational lies. And all those “Christian” church “leaders” will still worship the one who can delude oneself the most, the one who can strut most confidently, with the most self-aggrandizing esteem, among them.
But what do they actually “win” through these delusions? Well, just like in Israel, when they “took a leap of faith” by trying to force God to prove that He would obey the demands of their flesh, it first produced “quarrels.” All begin to fight among themselves, but chiefly against those who were truly serving God and ultimately against God Himself. This dissatisfaction resulted competition for things of the flesh that actually mattered nothing, since it was actually a desire of their flesh to rule over God and others. Each longed to be a better human god than the other human gods, and even a better god than the real Creator God Himself. So their quarrels led to increasing strife, fights and deadly chaos. Then, whenever one deluded soul overcame another deluded soul, it was a “win,” although that “win” destroyed the “winner” too, in the end. In the meantime, if an elect one’s mind of flesh also learned to lie to oneself, and began to think one was one’s own god, that mind of flesh would suppress the mind of one’s own spirit. So that flesh would be the “winner.” But since that one’s spirit could no longer translate the wordless concepts of God in the chamber of the soul, so the mind of flesh might comprehend and save its own life, that one’s flesh only “won” self-destruction through carnal stupidity. Since that one’s flesh no longer had the spirit’s inner conscience to guide it, it fell into every deception and trap. But, whether these “winners” had an elect or non-elect spirit, all each
“won” was slavery in Satan’s kingdom, with a promise of delusions, chaos, destruction and death.
To make ones mind of flesh into the proud god of one’s own life, and the ruler over God’s will, is insane and suicidal. And this kind of pride clearly breaks the first-order laws. For one is not willing to have any other god besides one’s own mind of flesh. One will not allow the real God to be one’s only God, above all other gods, because one will not let the real God guide one in all the important decisions of one’s life. Then one breaks the second-order laws in several ways, since one fashions an idol of oneself, a delusion of self in one’s own mind of flesh, so one can bow down before self, to esteem and serve self. And, if one is religious, one will also create a secondary false image of an obedient heavenly god, an obedient god who serves one’s fleshy demands. Then one might even call that secondary fake god by the name of the real God. After this idolatry, a religious one may need to twist God’s words in the Bible too, in a way that seems to verify all the delusions and lies one wants to believe about oneself and about one’s fake heavenly god. But, since the Bible is God’s Word, and one is claiming that one’s lies originate from God, one is actually abusing God’s name, by teaching oneself and believing that one’s own lies originate from God. So one takes the name of God in vain, breaks the principal third-order laws of God. All these three orders of God’s laws are right at the top of God’s list. So, for all the infantile elect spirits who truly and humbly desire to actually worship the real God, it is their highest priority to fulfill these three orders of God’s laws. For God considers all those who break these first three orders of His laws to be the worst of all sinners, far worse than the Page 214
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basic physical murderers, exploitative sexual predators, thieves and liars. For those who break these first three orders of God’s laws instigate and cause every kind of evil possible, as servants of Satan.
Now I hope you can see why I hate the false humanistic doctrines which teaches minds of flesh to become the gods of their own lives, and even the gods of God, that tell the flesh to “take a leap of faith” so one might gain the desires of the flesh from God. And the only solution, the only way out of this trap of the devil, is for the flesh to silence its stupid self and let its elect spirit humble itself before the real Creator God, so the concepts of God may pour into the mind of the spirit. So this was exactly what Jesus answered when that devil told Him to take a leap of faith. Now, Jesus quoted the more simple negative form of this command: “You will not force the Lord God to prove Himself by subjecting Him to a test.” But the longer, more complex, positive form of this command is found in the words of Moses: “You shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.... [His words] shall be on your heart ... You shall diligently keep the commandments of Yahweh your God, and His testimonies, and His statutes” (Deut. 6:5,6,17, WEB).
We need to know that we are not our own gods. We have no real control over our own destinies.
While our spirits are confined to these temporary bodies of flesh in this temporary life on earth, our elect spirits need to learn certain things. For this learning, this education of our spirits, is the only reason God caused us to pass through this predestined arrow of time on earth. The entire purpose of our lives on this earth is to teach our spirits to love our real heavenly Father, as He teaches and trains our spirits for our eternal lives in our real home above. We do not need to second-guess or question what God predestined, nor God’s faithfulness to us, which our temporary flesh tends to do whenever it might be in danger or suffering. Rather, we must not let our minds of flesh rule our lives, and never let our flesh command God to grant it all its ultimately self-destructive and other-destructive lusts and desires. If we are in trouble, our spirits need to quiet our minds of flesh, then ask our just, loving God for His guidance and help. Then His counsel will flood into the minds of our spirits, and our spirits can take those concepts into the chambers of our souls, translating them into words that our minds of flesh can comprehend and act upon. And, if He commands us to do something, we must do it precisely in the way He tells us to do it. Then God’s own power will make our works, which are done in His name, effective. But, if God wants us to continue to suffer or die, then our spirits need to ask God about this too, so our spirits might learn from that experience and adore His loving name.
God never needs to put us to the test, in order to prove our spirits’ faithfulness and love for Him.
That is only something that the devil and his minions do with their human properties, and only to make them into more fearful, mindless slaves of themselves. But real Creator God never tempts us.
For He sees literally all that is in our spirits. He knows exactly how much our spirits have become awake, alive, faithful to the truth and loving. He knows our spirits better than we know our own spirits. So the only way God “tests” us is to help us learn about our true inner selves, when we are ignorant or deceived about ourselves. And He tests us in the way we “test” metals, to purify them in fire. The heavenly Father of our spirits casts our flesh into the heat of trials and tribulations, to wake, teach, train, strengthen and purify our spirits. So it is not so He can find out something He did not already know. Rather, it is so we can find out something that we did not know about our own spirits.
And, after this kind of test in fire, our own spirits do more clearly understand themselves, as well as the Creator Spirit, the Father of our spirits. And, if this is the only way God ever “tests” our spirits, then our spirits will never need to put our God to any kind of test. For we cannot test God with fire so that He will learn more about Himself. And we certainly cannot test God like Satan tests his own slaves, to make them more terrorized and mindlessly obedient. Our elect spirits never need to prove God’s faithfulness and love for us, since His Spirit proves this to our elect spirits daily. Our spirits Page 215