Literature – Page 16 – Church of the Eternal God

Letter to the Brethren – November 30, 2001

November 30, 2001

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Dear Members and Co-workers,

Jesus Christ gave us a sober warning in Matthew 24: 6-8: “And you will hear of wars and rumors

of wars… And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are

the beginning of sorrows.” More terrible things will have to happen first, before the end is here (v.

6). Imagine that! The terror attack on New York and the subsequent war in Afghanistan, for

example, are only the “beginning.” Terror and war, earthquakes and other natural disasters (cp.

Luke 21:25-26), as well as famines and disease epidemics will increase!

Let’s consider how terrible the next few years, prior to Christ’s return, will become. The four

horsemen of the Apocalypse, symbolizing religious deception, war, famine and disease epidemics

(cp. Rev. 6: 2-8 with Matthew 24: 4-7) will be responsible for the death of one fourth of mankind

(Rev. 6:8, last sentence). Many of Christ’s disciples will be martyred in the “great tribulation.”

(Rev. 6: 9-11; Rev. 12:17). Many people will die when the third part of our drinking water

supplies will become unusable for consumption (Rev. 8: 10-11). Others will be hurt and

tormented for five months by the military power soon to arise in Europe (Rev. 9: 5,10), while

one-third of mankind will die during the counter attacks of the Asiatic hordes (Rev. 9:13-18).

The Bible forewarns that Christ must return to save man from himself and ensure his very

survival (Matthew 24: 21-22). By then, most people will have died. We read in Is. 24:5-6: “The

earth is also defiled under its inhabitants, because they have transgressed the laws, changed the

ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore the curse has devoured the earth… and few

men are left.” God will destroy those who destroy the earth (Rev. 11:18).

Knowing all of this, what are we to do about it? God has granted us understanding of His Word

and His prophecies for a reason. Christ placed us into His spiritual body, the Church, for a reason.

Simply put, we are here to preach Christ’s gospel message of the Kingdom of God in all the

world as a witness and to prepare for Christ’s return.

Consider that the only sign that Christ gave for His imminent return was this: “And this gospel of

the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all nations, and then the end will

come.” (Matthew 24:14). Christ called all of us to have a part in this proclamation.

At the same time, Christ is preparing a willing and obedient people to be ready (Rev. 19:7).

Ready for what? To marry Him at His return (Matthew 25:10) and to rule with Him on earth

(Rev. 5: 10) for a thousand years (Rev. 20:6). We have an awesome responsibility not to let down

in what our Master has commissioned us to do. And, we are to “watch therefore and pray

always” to be “counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before

the Son of Man.” (Luke 21:36; cp. Rev. 3:10; Rev. 12: 14). If it weren’t for Christ’s true disciples,

God would “smite the earth to ruin” (Mal. 4:6, Lamsa). But He won’t, as His children will be found “so doing” (Matthew 24:46) – they will be participating in the work of preaching the

gospel, and they will have been purifying themselves (1 John 3:3).

If we are about our Father’s business (Luke 2:49), we need not be afraid of the future. If God is

our protection and strength in Whom we trust, then we need not fear what man can do to us

(Ps. 56:11). We won’t have to be afraid of evil tidings (Ps. 112:7). We need not be afraid of the

“terror by night nor the arrow that flies by day, nor of the pestilence… nor of the destruction.” (Ps.

91:5-6). We can have confidence in God’s protection in the face of evil, plagues, war or any other

disaster (Ps. 91: 7-10). As long as we abide in Christ and He in us (John 15:4), the peace of Christ

will rule in our hearts (John 16:33). It is God’s peace that surpasses human understanding (Phil.

4:7), and that simply does not know fear (John 14:27).

God has called all of us to enable us to rule with His Son in His soon-coming Kingdom. Let us

say with the apostle Paul: “[We are] confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good

work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” (Phil. 1:6). God will never leave us nor

forsake us, as long as we don’t forsake Him.

Before closing, please note that, in response to requests from some of you, we are including three

return envelopes for your convenience. We do sincerely appreciate your standing alongside us as

we seek to obey Christ’s commission for His Church. Also, please do not hesitate to contact us

directly if we can assist you in any way. As a reminder for those of you who are sick and do not

live close enough for an elder to come to your home, we have anointed cloths available upon your

request, following the instructions and principles set forth in James 5:14-16; Mark 6:56; and Acts

19:12.

May our God Whom we serve bless you richly in all things.

With brotherly love,

Norbert Link

Letter to the Brethren – October 18, 2001

October 18, 2001

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Dear Brethren and Co-workers,

As we begin to take stock of where we are after the Feast of Tabernacles, the first thing we want to do is to give thanks and credit where it is due. What a peaceful, rewarding and joyful feast we have just experienced! God has blessed us richly in every way. Our hope and our strength have been renewed, and we are continuously being encouraged to go forward. As the dust settles, more and more brethren who have remained steadfast in the faith have been coming together in this common effort.

Once again, God has given us the opportunity and a voice to be able to declare His words. Therefore, our thanks are twofold – first of all to God, and then to all the brethren. Your prayers, your encouragement, your willing offerings, your tithes, your voluntary service and your gifts to God make it all possible.

We find an example of this kind of “thanks” when King David was inspired to pour out his gratitude to God, and to all the brethren for their very generous freewill gifts:

“Blessed are You, LORD God of Israel, our Father, forever and ever.

Yours, O LORD, is the greatness, The power and the glory, The victory

and the majesty; For all that is in heaven and in earth is Yours;

Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, And You are exalted as head over all.

Both riches and honor come from You, And You reign over all. In

Your hand is power and might; In Your hand it is to make great And

to give strength to all. Now therefore, our God, We thank You And

praise Your glorious name. But who am I, and who are my people,

That we should be able to offer so willingly as this?

For all things come from You, And of Your own we have given You.

For we are aliens and pilgrims before You, As were all our fathers;

Our days on earth are as a shadow, And without hope.” (1 Ch 29:10-15)

What a blessing it is for us, not only to be a part of God’s great plan, but also to be able to continue to actively serve Him. Less than four months ago, we did not know if it would be possible for all of us to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles together this year. There was no assurance we would be able to continue the full time preaching and publishing of the whole uncompromised gospel. We asked ourselves, “How long will we be able to boldly stand for the Truth and uphold the moral high ground?”

As brethren, scattered geographically, but together in spirit, we can only thank God when we consider what He has done for all of us. He has been richly blessing us as it says in Luke 6, “in giving us good measure, pressed down and running over.” Because of the blessings of God, and the very generous nature of His people, we have come away from the Fall Holy Days, not only with a renewed vigor to continue His work, but also with the financial resources to do so. We are not ashamed to express our generosity just as King David did. For this, we give You, O Lord, the thanks and the glory.

Our brethren have come away from this feast having been fed with the undistorted meaning of the Holy Days. All of us are invigorated and stirred to action. Many are saying, “This was the best feast ever – or he best feast in a long, long time.” Let’s not let down. We must hold fast, be zealous, and remain uncompromising as we continue to do God’s will.

During these Fall Holy Days, whether in Great Britain, USA, Belgium, Canada, Philippines, at home or wherever our brethren were observing the feast days, there was a renewed awareness of end time events and an increased expectancy for the return of Jesus Christ. These are dangerous times. Never before have there been so many “winds of doctrine and prophetic speculations” clouding men’s minds, to draw away God’s people.

Because conditions are dangerous and changing rapidly, we must speak and write with a renewed clarity and fervor. Never before, on the way to and from the feast, have we seen armed military men patrolling air terminals in the United States. The fear of terrorism is beginning to take its toll, not only on the peaceful environment that we had in America, but terrorism’s impact is affecting the economy in a way that has the financial experts dismayed. Worse yet, world geopolitics are being rewritten. The real danger for us, however, is of a spiritual nature. Time is short, and there is much to be done.

How will God continue to call some “at the last hour” as in the parable of the laborers in the vineyard? God’s work is not yet complete – we must be “so doing” when Christ returns. If God’s work is not over, then our work is not over. For our little group, this is the essence of our existence – we must continue – it is not our strength, but God who does the Work. But, brethren, we do have our part in it.

God is pleased with our standing up, not seeking security or status, and continuing in His uncompromised Truth. He would not be pleased with haughtiness and arrogance. So, we say thank you, humbly, to our Father for sustaining us and allowing us to go forward.

As much as we are being blessed, we must always remember then, that it is not by our might, power, or any such thing. Let us continue to pray for a humble attitude, recognizing that anything we give to God already belongs to Him. Or, as David so eloquently put it, “For all things come from You, and of Your own we have given You.” (1 Ch 29:14)

We must always remember that God’s plan is sure, and right on His schedule. We can be happy, and rest assured for that. Success will be His, and He wants us to share in that ultimate success with Him and his Son, Jesus Christ. Yes, we have much to be thankful for, brethren.

It is only our Father’s appreciation that any of us truly desire. Let’s recognize that He is the one who says to us, “Thank you.” And, as we jointly thank God, let me also say to you, thank you brethren, most of all for standing strong in God’s Truth.

Your brother, in Christian love,

Warren M. Zehrun

The Gospel of the Kingdom of God

October 1, 2001July 13, 2023

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What Is the Gospel?

When you hear the word Gospel, what comes to mind? Do you think of the gospel of grace? Do you think about the four gospel writers—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? Do you think of the gospel about the person of Jesus Christ?

There seems to be quite a bit of confusion and some misconceptions when it comes to the gospel. What then, is the Gospel? And where can we find irrefutable answers to this most VITAL subject? We’ll go to an irrefutable source—God’s Word—the Bible.

Only One True Gospel

The word “gospel” simply means “good news.” Jesus Christ was a messenger sent by God the Father to proclaim the Gospel or the good news. But people did not want to hear it and eventually killed Christ. His true disciples were also persecuted when they continued to proclaim the very same message that Christ brought. What was it about this message that created so much hostility among the listeners? And why does there continue to be such a variety of ideas about what the Gospel is?

There is only one true gospel, but many counterfeits. Already at the time of the Apostle Paul, another gospel, a counterfeit, was being preached. Paul warned everyone not to accept or believe this counterfeit—in fact, not to accept any message which is not the true and only good news that Christ brought.

He states in Galatians 1:6-9: “I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ [the good news that Christ brought]. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than that we have preached to you, let him be accursed. And as we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.”

And why could Paul be so sure that the gospel that he had preached to them was the only true one? Because he had received this message directly from Christ, as he states in verses 11-12: “But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Christ, the messenger of the good news, revealed it to Paul. Just what was this message?

Good News of the Kingdom of God

Let’s turn to the book of Mark. This account is sometimes called the “gospel of Mark,” but that is really an inaccurate designation. The New King James Bible introduces it as “the gospel according to Mark.” Let’s read in Mark 1:1 to see who brought this gospel. We read: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

Jesus Christ brought good news from God the Father. He said many times that whatever He taught was not of Him, but of God the Father. It is true that the gospel includes news and information about Christ Himself and the reason He became human, but the gospel of Christ includes more than just news about Christ.

Notice Mark 1:14-15: “Now after John [the Baptist] was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe the gospel…’”

The Bible repeats time and again that Jesus Christ preached the gospel of the Kingdom of God. In fact, Christ’s whole message had to do with the Kingdom of God—WHAT it is, WHY we need to understand it, and HOW we can have a part in it.

The Jews at the time of Christ were so upset about the message of the Kingdom of God that they killed Christ. Their understanding of what the Kingdom of God is, and who would be in it, was quite different from what Jesus taught. That is why they were so intent on killing Him.

Mark 4:11-12: “And He said to them [His disciples]: ‘To you it has been given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God; but to those who are outside, all things come in parables, so that seeing they may see and not perceive, and hearing they may hear and not understand; lest they should turn, and their sins be forgiven them.’”

Here we see that Christ’s disciples would understand what the Kingdom of God is all about—but that people who were not called would not understand—to them it would be a great mystery, beyond comprehension. We also see that the Kingdom of God has to do with “turning” and “forgiveness of sin.” We read that people who are outside would not “turn.” Earlier, we read that Christ said, people who hear the gospel must repent.

It’s really the same thing—when we repent, we turn around, go the other way, leaving the wrong way and going the right way. And we ask for forgiveness of our past wrong conduct, of our sins, of what we were, realizing that our past ways were sinful.

So the disciples of Christ would do that—they would turn or repent and ask for and receive forgiveness of their evil past, so that they could go on without a guilty conscience on their way toward the Kingdom of God. Those outside, though—those who are not called in this life—would not believe the gospel of the Kingdom of God and, as a consequence, they would not understand that repentance and forgiveness are prerequisites to entering the Kingdom of God.

Turn to Luke 8:1, “Now it came to pass, afterward, that He went through every city and village, preaching and bringing the glad tidings of the Kingdom of God.” The margin of the New King James Bible has here, “proclaiming the good news” of the Kingdom of God. Jesus came to preach the gospel or good news of the Kingdom of God. It is GOOD news—the BEST news one can imagine, once we understand what the Kingdom of God IS—and that WE can become part of it.

Jesus would continue preaching the good news, as we read in Luke 9:11: “He received them and spoke to them about the Kingdom of God.”

God has not changed, and neither has His message. He sent His disciples out at that time to preach the gospel of the Kingdom of God (cp. Luke 9:2), and He does not expect anything less of His true servants today. But in order to preach the gospel, we must know, of course, what the Gospel of the Kingdom of God is. This means, we must belong to those whom God has specifically revealed this knowledge. Remember, only the true servants of Christ would understand the mystery of the Kingdom of God. Luke 8: 9-10: “Then His disciples asked Him, saying, ‘What does this parable mean?’ And He said, ‘To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’”

The Bible makes it very clear that we are not yet in the Kingdom of God, even if we are Christ’s disciples, and it also makes it clear that the Kingdom of God is not something within us. Rather, we must indeed enter into it—in the future—if we remain faithful.

Kingdom of God Has Not Yet Come

Jesus Christ gave a parable that shows the Kingdom of God is not yet here. Mark 10:17-22: “Now as He was going out on the road, one came running, knelt before Him, and asked Him, ‘Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?’ So Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. You know the commandments: Do not commit adultery. Do not murder. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Do not defraud. Honor your father and your mother.’ And he answered and said to Him, ‘Teacher, all these things I have kept from my youth.’ Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, ‘One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me.’ But he was sad at this word, and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.”

Realize now, this was a command that Christ gave to this rich man because He saw that his riches stood between him and the way to eternal life. Remember, the man had asked Christ what to do that he could INHERIT eternal life. He knew he did not have it yet. And Christ told him that if he wanted to have eternal life, he needed to keep the commandments (cp. Matthew 19:17). And one of the commandments is, You shall not have any other gods before Me. The young man had placed the god of riches before the true God. And he did not want to give it up.

Continuing now in Mark 10:23: “Then Jesus looked around and said to His disciples, ‘How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the Kingdom of God.’” Here we see that entering the Kingdom of God is the same or synonymous with inheriting eternal life.

Verses 24-26: “And the disciples were astonished at His words. But Jesus answered again and said to them, ‘Children, how hard it is for those who TRUST IN RICHES to enter the Kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.’ And they were greatly astonished, saying among themselves, ‘Who then can be saved?’” The disciples understood that inheriting eternal life, entering the Kingdom of God, and salvation are all one and the same.

Christ did not disagree with that perception. Quite to the contrary, He confirmed it, by saying in verse 27: “But Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man it is impossible, but not with God; for with God all things are possible.’” Even the salvation of a rich person, upon repentance and belief.

Continuing in verses 28 – 30: “Then Peter began to say to Him, ‘See, we have left all and followed You.’” So Jesus answered and said, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My sake and the gospel’s, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time—houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions—and in the age to come, eternal life.’” God promises eternal life to those who place more importance on attaining the Kingdom of God than on material possessions, even if it means suffering.

The Gospel Must Be Preached In All the World

Turn now to Mark 13:10 where we find a remarkable prophecy of Christ for our time today, again relating to the gospel of the Kingdom of God. Christ was answering the questions of His disciples as to when He would return. We read: “And the gospel must first be preached to all the nations.”

There is only one gospel, as we have seen—the gospel of the Kingdom of God. In the parallel account of Matthew, we find the gospel clearly identified. We read in Matthew 24: 14, “And this gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.”

Look around you. The end is not here yet. Christ has not returned to this earth yet, as He promised He would. His prophecy about the gospel being preached in all the world is still to be fulfilled. The only sign for His imminent return that Christ specifically referred to in Matthew 24:14, is when the gospel of the Kingdom is being preached in all the world as a witness. Then the end will come.

Mark repeats the fact that Christ’s gospel would be preached in all the world [to all nations] in Mark 14:9. By way of background, a woman had come to anoint Jesus’ feet with precious fragrant oil. The disciples rebuked her for that, but Christ came to her defense, realizing that the woman had done it in anticipation of His death. And so Christ said: “‘Assuredly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her.’”

We also read in Mark 16:15-16 the commission Christ gave His disciples: “‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.’” This is a continuing obligation of Christ’s disciples—to preach the gospel of the Kingdom of God. Notice, it did not say to preach a gospel, but rather, to preach the gospel. Again, there is only ONE gospel.

We Are Not Yet Saved

When people hear this gospel and believe the message, they are to respond by repenting and being baptized as an outward sign of inward repentance. They will then receive the gift of the Holy Spirit that will enable them to do what Christ told them to do—to keep the commandments. In doing so, they will move toward the Kingdom of God so that they can finally enter it, at the time of their resurrection. So their process of salvation began with their conversion, but it will not be completed until they have been resurrected or changed to immortality.

That will be the time when they WILL ULTIMATELY BE saved—not before. Remember what Christ said, “He who believes and is baptized WILL BE [future] saved.” Remember, final salvation is the same as inheriting eternal life and entering the Kingdom of God. We are not yet saved!

Notice, too, Christ’s words in Matthew 24:13: “But he who endures to the end shall be saved.” To enter the Kingdom of God requires overcoming, endurance, perseverance, long-suffering and patience in the face of pressure, adversity and even persecution. Revelation 14:12 tells us what kind of patience God requires: “Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus [the faith that Jesus had when He was human and with which He was able to resist and overcome Satan the devil—the faith that God will help us to keep His commandments].”

Many have correctly understood this in the past, but have yielded to the pressures of this world and have given up. Christ warned us through several parables that many would fall by the wayside. But we don’t have to give up. We can endure until the end—until we die or until Christ returns, whichever is earlier.

The Kingdom of God Will Be Here On the Earth

Luke has much to say about the gospel of the Kingdom of God and the rulership of Jesus Christ. Let’s read a familiar passage in Luke 1:30-33 where an angel was sent to Mary to announce to her that she would become pregnant, but not from a man: “Then the angel [Gabriel] said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His Kingdom there will be no end.’”

Jesus Christ Was Born to Be the King

There is a lot being said here by the angel Gabriel. Let’s take a closer look. Jesus Christ was born to become a KING. Remember that He told this to Pilate, and the Jews used this as a reason to have Him killed. The angel proclaimed that Jesus would become a King to RULE over the House of Jacob FOREVER. If He rules forever, then this would imply eternal life. This account also says that Jesus Christ would rule from the throne of His father, or forefather, David. So we read that the throne of David has a connection with this eternal rulership. And finally, there will be no end to His Kingdom—once established, it would rule and exist forever—eternally.

The angel Gabriel quoted here in part from Isaiah 9:6-7: “For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David and over His Kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever.”

Isaiah had been inspired to write about the birth of Christ, and also about His second coming, as well as the establishment of the Kingdom of God here on earth. After all, the throne of David is here on earth, not somewhere in heaven. And Isaiah foretold that this Child had been God prior to His human birth, and that He became man, but would become God again when He was resurrected, to rule as God in the Kingdom of God, which is also called a kingdom of peace.

Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, would rule over this earth with justice and in a peaceful way. Once the peoples [nations] of this world really understand God’s way of life, they will not want to learn war any more, as we read in Isaiah 2:4, but will, in fact, beat their swords into plowshares. War and strife will be replaced with peace and harmony. That is what the Kingdom of God on this earth, under the rulership of Jesus Christ the King, will accomplish.

Christ knew why He had come to this earth. He knew what His mission was, and what He had to proclaim. Let’s notice it in Luke 4:43: “I must preach the Kingdom of God to the other cities also, because for this purpose I have been sent.”

But that was not what many expected. They thought Christ would establish the Kingdom of God on earth right then and there—they did not expect Him to just preach about it, and the message they heard was not what they expected to hear. Even John the Baptist, when he was in prison, began to wonder whether Jesus was really the Christ, and so he asked Jesus through his disciples, “Are you the Coming One, or do we look for another?”

Notice what proofs Jesus gave to John’s disciples that He was the Christ, the King of the coming [future] Kingdom. As recorded in Luke 7:22: “Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard: that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them.” Christ preached the gospel of the Kingdom of God—one of the proofs that He was the Messiah.

Let’s continue reading in Luke, where we find another statement made by Jesus Christ pertaining to the Kingdom of God. A statement which must have shocked His listeners—especially those who believed that the Kingdom of God was something physical, composed of physical human beings. The truth is that the Kingdom of God will rule over humans, but it will not be composed of humans. Notice in Luke 7:28: “For I say to you, among those born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist; but he who is least in the Kingdom of God is greater than he.”

John the Baptist was born of a woman, but he had the Holy Spirit while he was still in his mother’s womb (Luke 1:15). And having God’s Spirit so abundantly and from his mother’s womb, is what made him such a great prophet. Now, John the Baptist was not in the Kingdom of God yet, and this account we just read in Luke, compares John’s human status as being less than anybody in the Kingdom of God. Let’s understand why.

Human Beings Cannot Enter the Kingdom of God

Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 15:50: “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.” Are you still human? If so, you cannot inherit the Kingdom of God as you are. So then, how can we enter the Kingdom?

We Must Be Changed

Paul explains in verses 51 and 52: “Behold, I tell you a mystery…we shall all be changed—in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” That is, how we can enter the Kingdom of God. Our human bodies need to be changed. But changed to what?

Verses 42-49: “So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body…(verse 47) The first man [Adam] was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man [Jesus Christ] is the Lord from heaven…(verse 49) And as we have borne the image of the man of dust [human], we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man [spirit].”

Did you catch that? Is it true that we will bear the image of the heavenly Man, Jesus Christ? Is Paul really saying that we, in the resurrection, when entering the Kingdom of God, will look like Jesus Christ? Yes, that is EXACTLY what Paul is saying.

And the same message was written by the Apostle John, the disciple whom Jesus loved. In I John 3:1-2, we read: “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God…. Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be [we are still flesh and blood—we have not been changed yet to spirit beings], but we know that when He is revealed [when Christ comes back in power and glory, to establish the Kingdom of God on this earth], we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”

No human being can look at God in His glorified state, as He is, and live. But when we are changed, we can look at God and His Son Jesus Christ in their glorified state and live. Why? Because we will be like them, Jesus Christ being the image of God the Father. And what does it mean to be like Christ? To bear His image? It means that we will look like He looks. And how does He look in His glorified state? Let’s read Revelation 1:14-16, which gives us a glimpse of what Christ looks like today: “His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire. His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters…and His countenance was like the sun shining in its strength.” That’s exactly how we will look too, when we are changed and are in the Kingdom of God.

There is another description of God the Father and Jesus Christ in the Old Testament, in the writings of the prophet Daniel. We read in Daniel 7:9-14: “I watched till thrones were put in place, and the Ancient of Days [a reference to God the Father] was seated; His garment was white as snow, and the hair of His head was like pure wool. His throne was a fiery flame, its wheels a burning fire…And behold, One like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven [describing the ascension of the resurrected Christ to heaven]! He came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him. Then to Him [the Son of Man] was given dominion and glory and a Kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His Kingdom the one which shall not be destroyed.”

We Will Rule With Christ in the Kingdom

Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, who is also God, receives rulership over the peoples of the world from God the Father, the Ancient of Days. Christ will establish this Kingdom, the Kingdom of God, on this earth. It’s a Kingdom ruled by God. It’s a Kingdom composed of God—the Father and Jesus Christ.

But remember, we learned earlier that we also will be in that Kingdom. Notice Daniel 7:27: “Then the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven [that is, on this earth] shall be given to the people, the saints of the Most High. His Kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. And all dominions shall serve and obey Him.”

So WE, the resurrected saints, those who have been faithful, will be given dominion over all nations, once we are in the Kingdom of God. Christ tells us in Revelation 2:26-27: “‘And he who overcomes, and keeps My works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations—he shall rule them with a rod if iron [that is, he will not allow rebellion and crime and evil as we see in this world]; they [those who want to continue to live with violence and hatred and who will try to bring about destruction and misery] shall be dashed to pieces like the potter’s vessels, as I also have received from My Father.”

Let’s also note this remarkable statement in Revelation 20:4 and 6: “And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them…. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years… Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection…they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.”

And where will they reign? In heaven? Let’s read Revelation 5:10: “[You] have made them [as it should be—the angels are singing this song about the saints—us] kings and priests to our God; and we [again, it should say: they] shall reign on the earth.”

Do you understand what all these scriptures are telling us? We will be like Christ, we will bear His image, we will look like He does, we will be in God’s Kingdom, we will reign with Christ. What does this all mean? Does this mean that we will be like the angels of God—higher in essence than man, but lower in essence than God?

No, because Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 6: 3 that we will rule over, and judge, angels. So we will be higher than the angels. Further, angels won’t be in the Kingdom of God, because they are not God. Rather, Hebrews 1:14 tells us that they are “ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation.” (Authoried Version) They are beings created by God, but without the potential of becoming God. Lucifer, the cherub, wanted to become like the most High God, as we read in Isaiah 14:14, and actually tried to throw God from His throne, but he was defeated, of course, and became Satan the devil.

No, the Bible is very clear that whoever is in the Kingdom of God must actually be God. We must become God beings, sharing in Christ’s glory, the firstborn of many brethren. That is indeed a mystery that only very few understand today—that God is a Family, consisting presently of God the Father and the Son Jesus Christ, but that God is enlarging His Family. We are already called His children, but we have not been glorified yet. And when we are glorified at the time of our resurrection to eternal life, we will be entering the Kingdom of God, as literal God beings, as glorified sons and daughters of God, made immortal.

Why Were Humans Created?

Have you ever wondered why God even created man? God the Father tells Jesus Christ in Genesis 1:26, “‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.’”

God is a Family, and when He created man, He began His awesome work of adding to His Family. He wanted to bring children into His Family. Note how the NIV translates Hebrews 2:11: “Both the one who makes man holy [God] and those who are made holy [that’s us] are of the same family”—that is, the Family of God.

Let’s also read Ephesians 3:14-15: “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven [a reference to God the Father and Jesus Christ] and earth [that refers to us] is named.” (Authoried Version) The Family of God IS the Kingdom of God. We will be permitted to enter that Family, that Kingdom, if we endure and live worthy of our calling.

The Awesome Human Potential

That we are to become members of the God Family, or God beings, is clearly taught in scripture. Let’s look at a few more proofs.

In Psalm 17:15, we read about man’s potential: “As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness.” David understood that we will look like God when we are resurrected.

Also Phil. 3:20-21: “For our citizenship is in heaven… [Our names are written in heaven, where God is. We belong to Him, we are His children. We belong to a different country, a heavenly government, which will come down to this earth when Christ returns.]…from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body.” We already read that we shall bear the image of Christ, we will look like He does, in His glorified state.

But more than that—we will actually BE GOD BEINGS. We are told that it is our potential to be filled with the fullness of God. That is what it says in Eph. 3:19. Paul wants us “to be filled”—ultimately—“with all the fullness of God.”

What does this mean? It means that we will be God beings, since we read in Col. 1:19 that “it pleased the Father that in Him [in Jesus Christ] all the fullness should dwell.” That was after Christ was resurrected—He became God again, as before His human birth. And as in Christ all the fullness of God dwells, so in us also all the fullness of God will dwell—when we are resurrected.

We understand that Christ was God before His human existence, because John 1:1 says that in the beginning was the Word—the Logos, as it is called in Greek, meaning, the Spokesman. This Logos was none other than Jesus Christ, and this Word or Logos, according to John 1:1, was with God [God the Father], and He was God. But He gave up His divine nature and became a man—flesh and blood. Phil. 2:6-7 tells us that Jesus, “being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.” John 1:14 tells us that the Word, Jesus Christ, became flesh. He had to become human in order to overcome sin in the flesh, and in order to die. But after His resurrection, Christ became God again. He is called God in Titus 2:13, where we read that we are “looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.”

And as the Man Jesus Christ became God in the resurrection, so will we. Christ himself confirmed this human potential in John 10:31-36: “Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him. Jesus answered them, ‘Many good works I have shown you from My Father. For which of those works do you stone Me?’ The Jews answered Him, saying, ‘For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God.’ Jesus answered them, ‘Is it not written in your law, “I said, You are gods?” If He called them gods, to whom the Word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), do you say of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, You are blaspheming, because I said, I am the Son of God?’”

What is Jesus Christ telling us here? That He, the Son of God who had become man, would be God again. But also, that it is man’s potential to become God beings as well. Although stated in a present tense, Christ was mainly referring to the future, speaking about future things as if they already existed (cp. Romans 4:17). God created man so that man could become God—a member of the God Family.

God is Reproducing Himself

Those of you who are familiar with us know that we have been preaching this truth for a long time. Herbert W. Armstrong, the late human leader of the Church of God in the 20th century, wrote a book entitled, “Mystery of the Ages.” On page 170, he wrote: “Consider why God created mankind in the first place. God is reproducing Himself through man. He is creating in Man God’s own perfect holy and righteous spiritual character. And that, in turn, is purposed to restore the government of God over all the earth. And further, to create BILLIONS OF GOD BEINGS …”

This knowledge that it is man’s potential to become God has also been understood by several Christian authors over the centuries. In her book, “A History of God,” former Catholic nun Karen Armstrong [not related to Herbert Armstrong], quotes several early professing Christian writers who believed and taught this truth. She writes on page 98: “Clement [of Alexandria, ca. 150-215 A.D.] also believed that Jesus was God… If Christians imitated Christ, they too would become deified: divine, incorruptible and impassable. Indeed, Christ had been the divine logos, who had become man, ‘so that you might learn from a man how to become God.’”

She also quotes, on page 129, Maximus the Confessor, who lived from ca. 580-662, as saying, “The word was made flesh in order that ‘the whole human being would become God, deified by the grace of God become man.”

Theophilus (A.D. 115-181) wrote: “A man, by keeping the directions of God, may receive from Him immortality…and become God.”

The Trinitarian author Spiros Zodhiates writes regarding John 1:18 [“No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son (God) who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.”]: “The word (for only-begotten) monogenees actually is a compound of the word monos = ‘alone,’ and the word genos = ‘race, stock, family.’ Here we are told that He who came to reveal God—Jesus Christ—is of the same family, of the same stock, of the same race, as God. There is ample evidence in the scriptures that the Godhead is a Family.” (“Was Jesus God?”, page 21)

Further, the most recent Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church, which was published in 1994 under the auspices of Pope John Paul II, states that the official Catholic position is, that man is to become God. Now this might not be very well known even among Catholics, but here are some quotes from the Catechism:

“The Word became flesh to make us ‘partakers of the divine nature’: For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.’ ‘For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.’ ‘The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods.’” (pp. 128-129, Section 460. The last quote is attributed to Thomas of Aquinas.)

An Important Job for All Eternity

When we become members of God’s Family, we will be ruling this earth, as we have seen, for a thousand years, together with Christ who received His authority and power from God the Father.

But what after that? What is going to happen once the thousand years have expired? Our reign will never stop. Notice Revelation 22:4-5, which speaks about a time long after the 1000 years: “They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads [the name of God will be their name as well]…the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever.”

What will we do for all eternity? Over what will we reign, forever and ever? We have not been told everything yet, but one thing we do know: We will beautify our entire universe. Notice Romans 8:18-23: “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility… in hope; because the creation itself [the entire universe] also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption [better translated ‘sonship’], the redemption of our body.”

This passage indicates that once we are God beings and full members of the God Family, we will participate in the process of beautifying and finishing the creation of the presently unfinished universe. The universe is in decay—the planets are, from all that we can tell, waste and empty. But it is our human potential to become God and to free the universe from decay and corruption under the leadership of Jesus Christ.

God says that ultimately, He will make all things new (Rev. 21:5). And He tells us this, in Rev. 21:7: “He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My Son.”

You see, as Christ is the Son of God, so will we be sons and daughters of God. Of course, God the Father will always be greatest of all, and Christ will always be greater than we. But still—we will be God beings in the Family of God, literal children of our loving Father, and brothers and sisters of our elder brother Jesus Christ. What an awesome potential—what a destiny!

Now it’s clear WHY Christ said that although John the Baptist was the greatest of all the prophets born of a woman, everyone in the Kingdom of God will be much greater than he was at the time he was human.

How Do We Get There?

What are some of the requirements to gain entrance into the Kingdom of God—to become a member of the God Family? We read Jesus’ words in Luke 6:20: “‘Blessed are you poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God.’”

When comparing this with the parallel passage in Matthew 5:3, we understand that it refers to those who are “poor in spirit,” not necessarily those who are physically poor. Jesus did not mean those who have only a little bit of God’s Spirit, either. Rather, it means that we must be humble, willing to take correction and admonishment from God. If we have a humble attitude, as a little child, then we will be able to enter God’s Kingdom.

If you can see and understand the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, then this is a fairly good indication that God has opened your mind. If so, then God expects you to respond, because God does not give understanding to someone for no reason. The response God expects from you is to live within the law of God, doing what God tells you to do. Remember, we are told in the Bible time and again, if we want to enter into life, we must keep Gods’ commandments.

When Will the Kingdom Come?

Reading from the New King James Bible, Luke 17:20-21 states: “Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, ‘The Kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, See here! or, See there! For indeed, the Kingdom of God is within you.’”

Is the Kingdom of God Within Us?

Just what did Christ mean with the statement, “The Kingdom of God is within you?” Remember, He was speaking to the unbelieving, hypocritical, envious and self-righteous Pharisees. The answer to the question is that the phrase “the Kingdom of God is within you,” is wrongly translated. It should read, as the margin of the New King James Bible points out: The Kingdom of God is “in your midst.”

The Revised English Bible, the New American Bible, and the New Jerusalem Bible all render this phrase with, “among you.” The Moffat Bible puts it this way, “The Reign of God is now in your midst.”

The Ryrie Study Bible has the following annotation to this verse: “It cannot mean, ‘within you,’ for the Kingdom certainly was unconnected with the Pharisees to whom Jesus was speaking.”

John the Baptist had already identified Jesus as the King of the Kingdom of God, who was among them, when he stated, in John 1:26: “I baptize with water, but there stands One AMONG YOU whom you do not know. It is He who, coming after me, is preferred before me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose.”

Jesus, the future King of the Kingdom of God, was standing among them in person. But He was not glorified yet. The Kingdom was not established yet on the earth. Christ Himself had asked His disciples to pray, in Luke 11:2, “Your Kingdom COME.” We still pray that prayer today. The Kingdom has not come YET—we are still waiting for it!

But what did Christ mean with the phrase in Luke 17:20, “The Kingdom of God does not come with observation”? Does this mean that we cannot SEE the Kingdom of God? Remember, the Kingdom of God is the Family of God ruling over creation.

If we can’t see the Kingdom of God, or the two present members of that Family, how do we explain passages like Rev. 1:7? Here we read about the return of Jesus Christ, bringing to the earth the government or rulership of the Kingdom of God. It says: “Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him.”

Jesus Christ Himself describes His return in Matthew 24:30: “Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes [nations] of the earth will mourn, and they will SEE the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.”

Also, notice Luke 17: 24: “For as the lightning that flashes out of one part under heaven shines to the other part under heaven, so also the Son of Man will be in His day.”

So here people will SEE the returning Jesus Christ, the ruling King of the Kingdom of God. But Christ said, the Kingdom does not come with observation, so that people could not say, Here it is, or there it is. What did He mean by that?

Also, consider John 3:3 where Christ told Nicodemus: “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.”

Are We Born Again Now?

Are we born again now? Some believe they are, but let’s read in John 3:6: “That which is born of the flesh IS flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit IS spirit.” We are still flesh and blood, not spirit, so we cannot see the Kingdom of God yet.

Christ goes on to explain what it will be like once we are born of the Spirit. John 3: 8: “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes [you cannot see the wind, although you can feel its impact or power]. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” So Christ is saying here that unless you are Spirit, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.

But then we read in Luke 13:28: “There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the Kingdom of God, and yourselves thrust out.”

Also, we read that the rich man in Luke 16:19, who is waking up in the grave to be thrown into the lake of fire, sees Lazarus and Abraham “afar off.” (Verse 23). We understand that by that time Lazarus and Abraham will be in the Kingdom of God, but that the rich man is not, and will never be. Rather, he has committed the unpardonable sin and will be destroyed in Gehenna fire. So there are people, then, still flesh and blood, who will see the Kingdom of God.

So what does this all mean? How do we harmonize all these seemingly different and contradictory statements? Let’s go through them again, but now much more carefully:

Let’s start again with John 3:3: Unless we are born again, we CAN’T SEE the Kingdom of God. If we are born again, we are born of the Spirit—we will BE spirit. As a matter of fact, we will be God beings. And when we are spirit beings and full fledged members of the God Family, we can SEE the Kingdom of God in its power—we CAN see the other members of the God Family—we CAN see God the Father, Jesus Christ, and other Christians made immortal.

The word for “see” here is the Greek word, “eidon.” It is the same word as used in Luke 9:27, where Christ said that some of the disciples would SEE the Kingdom of God in power and glory, before they died. And they DID see it—but in a vision, as you recall. They were still flesh and blood, but they SAW the glorified Christ. They could only do that IN A VISION.

We DO read that Moses SAW the form of the Lord in His glorified state—but he was only allowed to see God’s back. Read it in Numbers 12:8: “I speak with him face to face [but not in His glorified state], even plainly and not in dark sayings, and he SEES the form of the Lord.” Now read Ex. 33: 18-23: “And he said, ‘Please, show me Your glory….’ (20) But He said, You cannot see My face [in its glorified state]; for no MAN shall see Me and live…. ( 22) So it shall be, while My glory passes by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and will cover you with My hand while I pass by. Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My back; but My face shall not be seen!”

The Greek word “eidon” used in John 3:3 and Luke 9:27, is usually and accurately translated as “see.” It is used in many passages throughout the Bible and has this meaning. For instance, we read in Matthew 4: 18 that Jesus SAW two brothers, Simon and Andrew, casting a net in the sea. Afterwards, He SAW two other brothers, James and John (v. 21).

On the other hand, we have read that those outside the Kingdom of God will SEE those inside the Kingdom of God. But how can that be, if flesh and blood cannot see the Kingdom of God?

For instance, we read in Rev. 1:7, that those who mourn over Christ’s return will SEE Him. Now, those people who are mourning that Christ comes back won’t be in the Kingdom—at least not at that time. But it says that they SEE Him. We also read, in Matthew 24:30, that all the tribes of the earth will mourn, when they SEE Christ return. Again, the tribes won’t be in the Kingdom of God, but they still see Him, the King of the Kingdom. And remember, Christ comes back in glory.

Also, we read in Luke 13:28 that those who weep because they have not been allowed to enter the Kingdom, SEE Abraham and others in the Kingdom. And finally, we read in Luke 16:23 that the rich man who is in torment because of his impending death, SEES Abraham afar off.

It is interesting that in all those passages, except in the ones in John 3:3 and Luke 9:27, the Greek word, translated “see,” is NOT “eidon,” but “horao.” This word “horao” CAN have, and many times does have, the meaning of seeing in a literal sense. For instance, we read in Matthew 5:8 that the pure in spirit will SEE God. The Greek word is “horao” and has the literal meaning.

Also, we read in 1 John 3:2 that we, when we are glorified, will SEE the returning Christ AS HE IS. The Greek word here is “horao” as well. This passage is interesting, as it implies that others who are not glorified, who are not in the Kingdom, will see Christ, too, but NOT AS HE IS.

That explains HOW the world will SEE the returning Christ. They will see Him, even in glory, but not to the degree of glory that would kill them immediately. We [those who are resurrected at His return] will SEE Him as He is, but the world will not see Him in His fullest glory.

In addition—this Greek word “horao” can ALSO have a figurative meaning. That is, it can also mean, “acknowledge, understand, comprehend, experience, discern, take heed behold, perceive.”

Consider the following examples.

John 8:38: “I speak what I have SEEN with My Father, and you do what you have SEEN with your father.” In both cases, the word is “horao.” The first time, the term describes, or at least includes, the literal act of seeing, but the second time, it can only describe a figurative way of seeing, as the father referred to here is Satan the devil—no human has actually seen the devil, a spirit being. And Satan cannot manifest himself, although he can possess men or even animals.

1 Thess. 5:15: “SEE that no one renders evil for evil to anyone.”

3 John 11: “He who does good is of God, but he who does evil has not SEEN God.”

So the people of this world and the rich man who SEE Abraham in the Kingdom, see him in the sense that they recognize and discern and understand the fact that he is in the Kingdom, while they are not.

Kingdom of God Does Not Come With Observation

Now, let’s go back to Christ’s statement in Luke 17:20 that “the Kingdom of God does not come with observation.” What did He mean by that?

The Greek word, translated here as “observation,” is “parateresis” and shows up only this one time in the entire New Testament. The “para” in “parateresis” means, “intensive” or “intense.” “Teresis” is a noun. But the verb “tereo,” which is derived from the noun “teresis,” appears 75 times in the New Testament.

In most cases, it has the meaning of “to keep,” such as, to keep the commandments (Matthew 19:17), or to keep or observe God’s word (John 15:20), or to keep good wine, in the sense of holding it back (John 2:10). It can have the meaning of “preserve,” as in John 17:11, or of “protect,” as in John 17:15. It is rendered “reserved” in I Peter 1:4, and it can have the meaning of keeping a prisoner under guard, as, for instance, in Matthew 27:36 and in numerous other places.

When this word “tereo” is combined with the word “para,” the meaning of which was “intensive” or “intensely,” the verb “ para – tereo” would mean then, that something is kept intensely, in the sense that it is either observed intensely, or guarded or protected or held back in an intense fashion, depending upon the context.

The verb “paratereo,” which is derived from the noun “parateresis,” which is used in Luke 17:20 and rendered there as “observation,” appears six times in the New Testament:

Mark 3:2: “So they watched Him closely…so that they might accuse Him.”

Luke 6:7: They “…watched Him closely…, that they might find an accusation against Him…”

Luke 14:1: “He went into the house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath, … they watched Him closely.”

Luke 20:20: “So they watched Him, and sent spies who pretended to be righteous, that they might seize on His words, in order to deliver Him to the power and the authority of the governor.”

Acts 9:24: “And they watched the gates day and night, to kill him.”

Gal. 4:10: “You observe [keep or watch closely or intensely, but in a negative way] days and months and seasons and years”—a reference to pagan holidays, NOT God’s Holy Days.

So we see that the Greek word “paratereo” is exclusively used in the New Testament in a negative way. It is used to convey an intense close watch on someone in order to trick him, accuse him or kill him. In Gal. 4:10, it is even associated with the superstitious keeping of pagan holidays.

Going back to Luke 17:20, which was translated in the Authorized Version as, “The Kingdom of God does not come with observations,” Christ is telling us that the Kingdom of God does not come in a negative way. Remember, it is the good news of the Kingdom of God that we are to proclaim. One cannot watch or observe it closely in a negative, superstitious way and one cannot gain it by deceit or craftiness. One cannot get it either in such a way that one wants to keep it under a guard, such as a prisoner. Remember, the Pharisees had attempted to “shut up the Kingdom of God against men.” They did not want to go in, but they would not allow others to go in either. (Matthew 23:13). It is for that reason that the Kingdom of God “would be taken away from” them and given to “a nation bearing the fruits of it”—the church of God (Matthew 21:43).

Christ was telling the Jews at His time that the Kingdom of God was already among them—but not in the way that it had been already established. They could not point at it and say, “Here it is.” Rather, Jesus Christ was standing among them in person. He was the representative of the Kingdom. He was the future King of the Kingdom, and the Savior through whom we can have access to the Kingdom. But it would not come for those who were looking for it in a negative way. Those who like to find fault with it, or try to gain it by trickery or fraud, or to keep it under guard, preventing others from entering it, would not gain access to it.

The Kingdom of God Has Come Upon You

In Luke 10:8-11, we read that the disciples were to preach that the “Kingdom of God has come near to” those who would be receptive to the message of the Kingdom of God. It was not established yet, but it was near to them who were willing to listen.

But, what about Luke 11:20, where Christ says that “the Kingdom of God has come upon” you? He was casting out demons by the power of God when He made that statement. The thought expressed here is the same expressed in Luke 17:20—the passage we just covered, where Christ said that the Kingdom was among the people. Christ, the future King, had been given the power from God to cast out demons. Many times, the Bible uses the word king and kingdom interchangeably.

In the book of Daniel, for example, we read about an image, symbolizing four world-ruling kingdoms. But the first kingdom, that of Babylon, is simply equated with the king over that kingdom, Nebuchadnezzar. We read in Dan. 2:37-38: “You, O king, are a king of kings. You are this head of gold.” But it goes on to say, in verse 39: “But after you shall arise another kingdom…”

The same principle applies in what we just read in Luke 11. Jesus Christ, the King of the Kingdom, had come to them, He was standing among them, and He healed people and cast out demons with the power of God. He gave them a glimpse of the power and the rulership and government of the Kingdom of God, once it was fully established in power here on earth.

Count the Cost

Let’s turn now to a passage in Luke 9, which tells us about the Kingdom of God and our relationship to it. Beginning in Verse 57: “Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, ‘Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.’”

Christ is telling this man to count the cost. He is talking about inheriting the Kingdom of God as we will see in a moment, but He is saying in effect, ‘Count the cost, because once you start, there is no turning back, even in spite of difficulties encountered.’

Continuing in verse 59: “Then he said to another, ‘Follow Me.’ But he said, ‘Lord, let me first go and bury my father.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the Kingdom of God.’” He was actually called into the ministry, and Christ was telling him that once he is in the ministry of Christ, nothing else is more important than preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God.

Continuing in verse 61: “And another also said, ‘Lord I WILL FOLLOW YOU, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God.’”

We are not to look back, as Lot’s wife did, once we have begun to look for, and work for, and live for, the inheritance of the Kingdom. That means, we are not to desire the things we left behind because of the Kingdom, like Israel desired the “good times” in Egypt, when they were facing trials in the wilderness. Christ admonishes us not to give up, but to continue in our mission to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom of God to the world until He returns to establish the rulership of the Kingdom of God on this earth.

Again, He tells us in Luke 12:31: “‘But seek the Kingdom of God, and all these [material] things shall be added to you.’” The parallel passage in Matthew 6:33 is perhaps better known, where we read that we are to “seek FIRST the Kingdom of God AND His [God’s] righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”

We read in Matthew 6:24: “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”

We are admonished to set our priorities straight. We cannot serve God and think, that at the same time, we can serve something or someone else. If we serve mammon, then we become distraught and discouraged and start to worry when mammon does not come. But when we serve God, we are told that we need to cast all our burdens on Him, and He will carry them for us. When we do that, we do not have to worry about tomorrow. And so we read in Matthew 6:25, “Therefore, I say to you, do not worry about your life…” When we really serve God, and nothing else besides God, then God will take care of us. He will open up possibilities to get a job, earn money and provide food and housing.

Back to Luke 12:29: “And do not seek what you should eat or what you should drink [Don’t make the pursuit of material possessions your goal and fulfillment in life], nor have an anxious mind.” Verse 32: “Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.” God WANTS us in His Family—His Kingdom.

The Kingdom of God is a Growing Family

In Luke 13:18- 21, we are taught that the Kingdom of God begins small, but grows. Right now, the Kingdom of God, which is the Family of God, consists of God the Father and Jesus Christ. But the God Family is a growing Family. God is adding to His Family. God is reproducing Himself.

We who are called today, are already sons and daughters of the Family, but we are not glorified God beings yet. That will happen when Christ returns. Even so, God has only called very few today. And many of those who are called do not respond to the call. That is why we are called FIRSTfruits, and Jesus Christ is called the FIRST of the Firstfruits. The designation of Firstfruits then, implies that there will be others who will be called later. This will happen in the millennium and during the Great White Throne Judgment period.

And so the God Family will grow, and the government of the Kingdom of God will grow too, that is, it will reach into the uttermost parts of the earth, and after that, into the entire universe. The rulership of Christ will start from the throne of David, which is here on earth—in Great Britain—and which will be located in Jerusalem when Christ has returned—and His rule will spread from there until it has covered the whole earth, as leaven starts small, until it has leavened the entire loaf.

What God does, begins small. Many think Christ’s mission was to save everyone at the time of His first coming, and that it is also the mission of the church today to convert as many as possible. This idea is totally false. Christ spoke to the multitudes in parables so that they could NOT understand. He would only tell the few—those He had called—what His parables meant. Likewise, God calls only very few today. Nobody can come to Christ unless the Father draws him or her.

Only One Way to Enter God’s Kingdom

Let’s note Luke 13:23-24: Christ is telling us that if WE are called to salvation, we must be serious about it. We must strive, put effort into it, to enter through the narrow gate into the Kingdom of God. When we read verses 28 -29, we see that the context is entering the Kingdom of God. So Christ is telling us that MANY will seek to enter it, but they will not be able to. This is a very serious warning. Christ is apparently talking about people who DID understand the truth about the Kingdom of God, and because they understood, they were anxious to inherit it and to enter it. But they would not be successful. Why?

The reason seems to be that they GAVE UP. They ceased obeying God and still thought they would be able to enter the Kingdom of God. They thought they could enter the Kingdom of God in another way, perhaps, NOT through the narrow gate. Read Luke 13:24 again! Christ said that it is IMPOSSIBLE to enter the Kingdom of God except through the NARROW gate. There is only ONE way to enter it.

Reading on in Luke 14: 16-24, we are warned again by Jesus Christ to not to have ANY priorities before that of seeking the Kingdom of God. Notice too, that what is being described here is occurring on earth, not in heaven.

Verses 21 and 23 describe people whose priorities are NOT the things of the world. They don’t own land or oxen, and may not even be able to marry—not that it is wrong to have land or oxen or to want to get married. But it is wrong if that is becoming the most important priority in life—if it is more important than serving God and entering the Kingdom of God. This means we should not get married to someone whose foremost interest is not the Kingdom of God, as this will invariably create marriage problems and could even lead to a lack of zeal and dedication in the one who began well.

“The Law and the Prophets were until John…”

Consider now this passage in Luke 16:16: “The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time the Kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is pressing into it.” Until the prophet John came, only the Old Testament scriptures—the law and the prophets—were known. In Luke 24:44, the entire Old Testament is summarized as the “Law of Moses, and the Prophets, and the Psalms.” The Kingdom of God had already been preached in the Old Testament, but not with such magnitude and clarity as Christ came to preach. NOW was the real possibility to enter it—since Christ had already qualified as King of that Kingdom, so that He could, with authority, proclaim the Kingdom of God as a future certainty for mankind. NOW it had become NEAR.

And because of Christ’s preaching, many responded by trying to get into the Kingdom. But unless they were called, they would still not know HOW. Remember, Christ told us in Luke 13:24 that many would TRY to enter it, but would not be able to. Christ warned those of His time, as well as us today, that not everyone who would just say “Lord, Lord” to Christ, would enter the Kingdom of God, but only the person “who does the will of My Father in heaven.” (Matt. 7:21)

This same thought is expressed in Luke 16:16: Everyone wants to desperately enter the Kingdom of God. But what does Christ tell us in verse 17: “And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tittle of the law to fail.” In other words, if you want to enter into eternal life, keep the commandments. Only those who do the will of the Father, which is, to keep the commandments of God, will enter the Kingdom of God. And now Christ continues to give us an example of such a commandment to be kept, in verse 18: “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced from her husband commits adultery.”

“You shall not commit adultery” is one of the commandments that we are to keep. And divorcing someone for any other than Biblical reasons and then marrying again, is a violation of the law against adultery.

In order to enter the Kingdom of God, in order to be part of the Kingdom of God, we must keep God’s Law. It is the SAME Law, as we are told in Luke 16:16, that had already been preached up until the time of John the Baptist. It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for the Law to fail.

We Must Be About Our Father’s Business

As we saw earlier, when Jesus Christ came preaching the Kingdom of God, people thought that He would establish it right then. Note in Luke 19:11: “Now as they heard these things, He spoke another parable, because He was near Jerusalem and because they thought the Kingdom of God would appear immediately.”

Although He, the future King of the Kingdom, was among them, the establishment of the Kingdom of God here on this earth would come much later—at the time of His second coming. He gave a parable in Luke 19 to explain this. Remember, He spoke in parables so that the world would not understand, but so that His disciples would understand.

We Must Be Faithful in Our Duties

Luke 19:12: “Therefore He said: A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return.” Christ is talking about Himself. He is the nobleman who went into a far country—the third heaven—to receive from God the Father the kingdom or government or rulership over this earth. We read about this already in the account of Daniel 7:13-14, where the Son of Man would appear in the clouds before the Ancient of Days to receive everlasting dominion and a kingdom that shall not be destroyed, so that all peoples and nations should serve Him.

And the angels confirmed this in Acts 1:11, when they told the disciples at the time when Christ ascended to heaven: “Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.”

Before Christ, the nobleman, departed for the far country, he instructed his servants to keep busy during his absence. We read in Luke 19:13: “So he called ten of his servants, delivered to them ten minas [a mina was worth about three month’s salary], and said to them, ‘Do business till I come.”

What the master gave his servants was valuable. And they were to DO something with what they had received. They were not to sit back and do nothing. Over and over we read in the Bible that Christ expects action from His disciples. He tells us in Matthew 28:19-20 that we are to make disciples of all nations, “‘teaching them to observe ALL THINGS that I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’” We already read in Mark 16 that we are to “go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”

Also, He admonishes us in Matthew 24 to watch and to be ready when He, the Master, returns. Beginning in Verse 45: “Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household, to give them food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing. Assuredly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all his goods. But if that evil servant says in his heart, My master is delaying his coming, and begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and to drink with the drunkards, the master of that servant…will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites.”

Again, we see that Christ expects His servants to BE DOING something—but it has to be the RIGHT kind of work. In this parable, the head servant is charged with feeding his fellow servants healthy physical food while his master is gone. The analogy here is that of the ministry feeding the sheep healthy spiritual food until Christ returns. As Christ told Peter three times, “feed my sheep.”

In Acts 20:28, Paul admonishes the ministry: “Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost [Spirit] hath made you overseers, to FEED the church of God which he has purchased with his own blood.” (Authorized Version)

The apostle Peter stated the same in 1 Peter 5:1-2, Authorized Version: “The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed: feed THE FLOCK OF God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind.”

Let’s go back to the parable again, to Luke 19:14: “But his citizens hated him, and sent a delegation after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us.”

We see that the citizens, the Jews at Christ’s time, did not want Christ to rule or govern over them. In fact, they said, “We have no king but Caesar.” Also, we read in John 1:11: “He came to His own [His own people], and His own did not receive Him.” This can also be applied to the Church today. How many do really want Christ to rule over their lives?

We see, too, that the citizens understood that the nobleman was to RULE as a king over them—but they did not like that. Again and again, we are told that the Kingdom of God is God RULING over others. Some will accept God’s rulership over their lives, and others will not. But in rejecting God’s rulership, they are in fact rejecting Christ’s sacrifice and are still living in sin.

Continue with verse 15: “And so it was that when he returned, having received the kingdom, he then commanded these servants, to whom he had given the money, to be called to him, that he might know how much every man had gained by trading.”

We Are Accountable for the Way We Live

At that time, Christ will be sitting on the throne of David here on earth, to judge the nations. But before He does that, He will ask His servants, His disciples, you and me, to come forward to give an account. A very similar parable is given in Matthew 25. The only difference is that each servant received from the outset a different amount of money. The first one would get five talents, the second one two talents, and the third one one talent, “according to his own ability.” A talent was worth 6,000 denarii. One denarius was the day’s wage for a worker. When the master of the servants comes back, this is what he does, according to Matthew 25:19: “After a long time the lord of those servants came and settled accounts with them.”

What we read here is about giving an account to Christ for what we did, or what we did not do, with what He gave us. Notice the following passages in this regard:

Romans 14:10-12: “For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ…So then each of us shall give account of himself to God.”

2 Cor. 5:10: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”

Heb. 4:13: “And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.”

Matthew 12:36-37: “But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

All of these passages speak about an accounting in the future, when we appear before the judgment seat of Christ AFTER His return. It is true, of course, as 1 Peter 4:17 points out, that the time has already come for judgment to BEGIN at the house of God. We are being judged today on how we live. Nevertheless, we still have to give account at the time of Christ’s return. And there is a reason for that, as we will see in a moment.

Continuing then with the parable in Luke 19, verse 16: “Then came the first [servant], saying, ‘Master, your mina has earned ten minas.’” This servant had done something with what he received from his master. This servant participated in preaching the precious truth of the Kingdom of God that he had received. He did it either directly, or indirectly through prayer, encouragement, financial support, or simply by living the way Christ told him to live, setting a right example to others, as a light shining in a dark room. He brought forth fruit with the seed he had received.

And let’s notice Christ’s answer, in Verse 17: “And he said to him, ‘Well done, good servant; because you were faithful in a very little, have authority over ten cities.’”

Christ is using here symbolic language. He points out that the servant did bring fruit, that he grew, spiritually speaking. He was able to overcome his weaknesses, at least to a large degree. He served Christ well. He was faithful even in little things. He was willing to let Christ work through him, as a potter would shape clay into something useful.

Remember what Christ told us in Rev. 2: 26: “And he who overcomes and keeps My works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations—He shall rule them with a rod of iron.”

Since the servant overcame, he was rewarded with a certain rulership position in the Kingdom of God.

There is a great deal of confusion in the Christian world today about God’s gifts and His rewards. There is clearly a distinction, and it is important that this distinction is understood. God gives us eternal life in His Family as a gift. We cannot do anything to earn it. Notice it in Luke 22:29: “And I bestow upon you a Kingdom, just as My Father bestowed one upon Me.”

Gifts and Rewards

The Kingdom of God is the Family of God ruling over all creation. So we will become part of that Family of God by a GIFT. God GIVES to us the enormous privilege to become a God being within His Family. God gives us everything we need to make it into the Kingdom (I Corinthians 1:4-8).

But God will NOT give the gift of membership in His Family to anyone who disqualifies him- or herself from that gift, by showing God through the way he or she lives that he or she does not really want what God is offering. Our lifestyle must reflect the fact that we really WANT to inherit eternal life in the Kingdom of God.

And if we received more from God than others, then more is required of us. That is why we read in 2 Thess. 1: 4-7: “we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure, which is manifest evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be counted worthy of the Kingdom of God, for which you also suffer, since it is a righteous thing with God to… GIVE YOU who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels.”

Also, we are told in Luke 20:35-36, we will be, in the resurrection, SONS OF GOD, if we “have been counted WORTHY to attain that age, AND the resurrection from the dead.”

So, our lifestyle will determine whether God is going to GIVE US the gift of eternal life and membership in His Family—in the Kingdom of God. We can’t earn it—but we CAN live unworthily and thereby become disqualified. (Cp. 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; Galatians 5:19-21; Ephesians 5:5).

When it comes to what exactly we will be doing in the Kingdom of God, HOW and TO WHAT EXTENT we will rule, that is very much dependent on how we live today. Our reward—that is, the extent of our rulership positions in the Kingdom of God—is dependent on how much fruit we produce today.

Notice in Rev. 22: 12: “And behold, I am coming quickly and My REWARD is with Me, to give to every one ACCORDING TO HIS WORK.”

1 Cor. 3: 8: “Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own REWARD according to HIS OWN LABOR.”

Luke 14:13-14: “But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you shall be REPAID AT THE RESURRECTION OF THE JUST.”

Luke 6: 22-23, 35: “Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you, and revile you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of Man’s sake. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy! For indeed YOUR REWARD IS GREAT IN HEAVEN, for in like manner their fathers did to the prophets…But, love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return [this does not mean, you lend without hoping to get the money back; it means, when you lend, you don’t do it with the motivation that now you deserve to really get something great back in return]; and your REWARD WILL BE GREAT, AND you will be sons of the Most High.”

2 John 8: “Look to yourselves, that we do not lose those things we worked for, but that we may receive A FULL REWARD.”

Our reward has to do with rulership. To the extent that we learn in this life to be ruled by God, we will be allowed to rule over others. We need to stay humble (Matthew 5:3). If we allow God to rule over us, we will develop the love of God in our lives, and only with that love in us can we be permitted to rule over others so that we won’t abuse the authority He gives us.

The servant who beats his fellow servants will not be given authority in the Kingdom of God. He has never learned how to use authority the right way. So God won’t give him authority in the World Tomorrow, so he cannot abuse his subjects on a greater scale. Those who are called into the ministry today and are given authority over God’s sheep have a great responsibility. They are being judged by God as to how they are doing. And if they are abusive, and if they refuse to feed the sheep proper and healthy food, and if they refuse to use the responsibilities given to preach the gospel in all the word as a witness, then, as we have read, Christ will come back at a time that servant will not expect, and cut him to pieces. It is THAT serious.

In the parable in Matthew 25, the servant who received five talents was able to double what he had received. And this is what the master tells his servant (Matthew 25: 21): “‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’” This is virtually the same response as the one given to the second servant in Luke’s parable who had gained ten minas.

Let’s return to Luke 19:18: “And the second [servant] came, saying, ‘Master, your mina has earned five minas.’” So this servant was successful, too. He did not sit idle all day. He let God change his life, too. But he was not as diligent and as persistent as the first servant, who had gained ten minas. But still—he DID overcome to an extent. So let’s see Christ’s response, in Verse 19: “Likewise he said to him, ‘You also be over five cities.’”

Not quite the same enthusiastic response as the first servant received. We don’t read here that Christ said, “Well done, good servant.” BUT, He grants him authority over five cities. NOT over ten. Not AS MUCH authority as to the first servant. But he had overcome enough to be granted authority over five.

Compare this with Matthew 13:8, where seed falls on good ground. But even then, the seed does not yield the same crop in each case. It says that some yielded hundredfold, some yielded sixty, and some only thirty. Christ admonishes us in the next verse to think about that. To hear, if we have ears to hear. Our reward then, is the extent of our rulership positions in the Kingdom of God over this earth, which is dependent on how much we overcome, and how much fruit we produce, in this life.

What is being described in the parable of Luke 19 is our appearance as spirit beings before the throne of Christ here on earth, after His return. When we appear before Him, we will be God beings, since the resurrection or our change took place. NOW it will be announced what REWARD of rulership positions we will receive. The first two servants in both parables, who will appear before Christ as glorified God beings and full members within the Family of God, will receive a reward.

Going back to the similar parable in Matthew 25, we see somewhat of a distinction there. The second servant in Matthew 25:22-23 traded in or gained only two additional talents. But remember, HE had only gotten two talents to begin with. So he traded in or overcame as much as the first servant, who had added five talents, but he had received five talents at the start. Therefore, Christ’s reward for the second servant in that parable is the same as the reward for the first servant. Both had overcome the same—according to their abilities. And so Christ’s words to the second servant are exactly the same as His words to the first servant. Christ could have given the second servant more talents, but He did not. Christ knows what we can handle individually. We really have no excuse for not using what God is giving us.

No Eternal Life for the Wicked

But let’s go now to the third servant in BOTH parables. This servant won’t get ANY reward. Let’s see why, in Luke 19: 20-21: “Then another came, saying, ‘Master, here is your mina, which I have kept put away in a handkerchief. For I feared you, because you are an austere [a severe] man. You collect what you do not deposit, and reap what you do not sow.’”

This servant had not done any business with what he had received from his Master. He was not trying to overcome sin nor his bad habits. He showed through his conduct that he was not willing to have God change him. He did not want to be clay that could be formed in the hand of the potter. And since he showed that he was not willing to let God rule over him, Christ was not willing to give him responsibility to rule over others.

Wrong Concept of God

This servant had a wrong concept of God. He FEARED Him, because he thought that God was a severe man. God does not want us to sin, and if we do, He will punish us, but He does so in love, for our good. We need to fear God in the sense that we must respect Him, but not fearing Him in the sense that the servant did. This servant did not have the love of God in him; otherwise, he would not have feared God in the way that he did. Remember what we read in 1 John 4:18 : “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear.” But this servant apparently feared that whatever he would do, he could not satisfy his master anyhow. So he decided to do nothing.

This servant also had a wrong concept of what was required of him. Christ HAD told all of them to do business with what He had given them, but the servant refused to do so. He thought perhaps, in spite of what the Master told him, as long as he didn’t lose the mina, his Master would still be pleased, and that he could still be in His Kingdom and rule over others. He was afraid to use his mina, perhaps thinking that he may lose it if he were to use it in business. So rather than being obedient to God’s command, he thought that he could go about it in a different way.

In the similar parable in Matthew 25, we read that the servant said that he was AFRAID, and so he hid the talent in the ground (Matthew 25: 25).

We are clearly told that if we are afraid, timid, fearful, or without courage, we will NOT inherit the Kingdom of God. We will NOT receive any rulership positions, either. The following scriptures confirm this:

Rev. 21:8: “But the cowardly, unbelieving…and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

Luke 9:26: “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed when He comes in His own glory, and in His Father’s, and of the holy angels.” And WHY would anybody be ashamed of Christ and His words?

The previous verses tell us, beginning in verse 23: “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily [by enduring trials and persecution and ridicule], and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life, will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed and lost?”

And then Christ goes on to talk about those who are ashamed of Him. But the context is, trying to gain acceptance from people, trying to fit in, trying to be politically correct, even if that means, NOT saying certain things that Christ says must be said. The reason? FEAR! Fear that we might offend. Fear that we might be persecuted. FEAR that people might not like us anymore. BUT—Christ says that if we are fearful and ashamed of Him, He will be ashamed of us and reject us. And that’s what He did with the third servant in Luke 19.

Let’s read Luke 19, beginning in verse 22: “And he said to him, ‘Out of your own mouth I will judge you, you wicked servant [we read earlier that we will be judged and condemned out of our own mouth]. You knew [that is what this man thought about God] that I was an austere man, collecting what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow. Why then did you not put my money in the bank, that at my coming I might have collected it with interest?’”

This does not mean that Christ really is that way. But Christ is saying: If YOU THOUGHT about me that way, then why did you not ACT accordingly—if not out of love for me, then at least because you should have been afraid of Me. But you, Christ said, did not do ANYTHING. That’s not even logical. The point being that the servant makes excuses here for not having overcome. In the parable in Matthew 25, Christ calls him not only “a wicked servant,” but, “a wicked AND LAZY servant.” (verse 26). But now we see how Christ reacts when we are UNWILLING to overcome and to DO what God wants us to do, and then make excuses for our failure:

Luke 19, Verses 24-26: “And he said to those who stood by [perhaps the angels, perhaps some of us having been made immortal], ‘Take the mina from him, and give it to him who has ten minas.’ (But they said to him, ‘Master, he has ten minas.’) For I say to you, that to everyone who has will be given; and from him who does not have, even what he has [or what he thinks he has] will be taken away from him.”

Christ gave the servant with the ten minas [the one who had overcome the most] another mina, that is, a rulership position over an additional city. He knew what that servant would be able to handle. He had proven this to God in this life.

The worthless servant did not receive ANY rulership position. In fact, he did not even receive eternal life. He did not enter the Kingdom of God. He did NOT appear in front of God as a glorified being, but as a human being who had not died, but who was still alive at the time of Christ’s return.

The parable in Matthew 25 ends this way, in verse 30: “And cast the unprofitable servant [the one who had received one talent and hid it in the ground] into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

He won’t rule in the Kingdom of God. He won’t even be there! If he thought that the one mina or the one talent gave him a guarantee to be in the Kingdom of God, without having to do anything with it, then he was now terribly disappointed. Whatever God gives us must be put to proper use.

Let’s see now, how the parable in Luke ends. Luke 19: 27: “’But bring here those enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, and slay them before me.’” Neither the unprofitable servant, nor the enemies of Christ will be in the Kingdom of God. Neither one was willing to accept God’s rule over their lives—to do what God told them to do.

We must be different! These are stern warnings for us. We must be about our Father’s business, so that we will hear the words of our Master, Jesus Christ, at the time of His return: “Well done, good and faithful servant, you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord.”

Letter to the Brethren – September 4, 2001

September 4, 2001

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Dear Brethren,

God’s festival season is almost upon us, though it seems we just completed the observance of the Feast of Pentecost. Time seems to move so rapidly, yet we are definitely looking forward to the upcoming feast days with great anticipation and excitement.

God tells us we are to keep His feast days in their seasons. God has a definite timetable He is working on, brethren. We must stay in tune with that timetable. We are about to enter the fall festival season, which has tremendous significance for the people of God, as well as for the whole world. Yet, most in the world are totally unaware of the awesome events that will soon overtake this society we are living in.

The four festivals that we will be observing within the next five weeks picture the return of Christ to this earth; the placing of the legitimate blame for the sins of this world squarely on the head of Satan the devil, where they belong; the establishment of the Government of God on this earth under Jesus Christ to rule the earth in righteousness for 1,000 years; and the time of the second resurrection and the opportunity for all of mankind who never heard the real truths of God, to come to an understanding, and to decide for themselves if they will have a part in God’s ultimate plan for all of mankind for all eternity.

These are awesome times we live in, brethren. Holy men have written of these things over the past 6,000 years as they were inspired by Almighty God, to show His great purpose to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. The time is now just before us when all of these things are about to be fulfilled.

Two weeks from today we will observe the Feast of Trumpets and just nine days later, the Day of Atonement. Four evenings later we begin the eight-day festival, which includes the Feast of Tabernacles and the Last Great Day. Why do we do this from year to year? God gives us the answer in Leviticus 23, where He outlines His feasts. Notice in verse four where He says, “These are the feasts of the Lord, holy convocations which you shall proclaim at their appointed times.”

These festivals have been ordained by Almighty God to be kept in their seasons, forever. They were kept by the Prophets and by Holy Men in the days covered by the Old Testament writings and even before. They were kept by Jesus Christ and the Apostles during the time of the New Testament Church. God will require His people to keep them during the Millennium and the Great White Throne Judgment period and beyond. God requires that we observe these days, today.

It is God’s desire that we not forget, that when He brought the Children of Israel out of Egypt, they dwelt in booths (temporary dwellings) (Lev. 23: 39-43). It is, in fact a time of rejoicing for God’s people. It is a time for us to stop and reflect on God’s great plan and what He has in store for those who love His Ways(Deut. 16: 13-15) (Lev. 23: 40).

In the account written in the book of Nehemiah, we see that when the Jews came out from under the captivity of the Babylonians, “ …Ezra the priest brought the Law before the congregation of men and women and all could hear with understanding on the first day of the seventh month” {Feast of Trumpets} (Nehemiah 8: 2). “And they found written in the Law, which the Lord had commanded by Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in booths during the feast of the seventh month” {Feast of Tabernacles} (Verse 14).

Notice now, (Verses 17-18). “So the whole congregation of those who had returned from the captivity made booths and sat under the booths; for since the days of Joshua the son of Nun until that day the children of Israel had not done so. And there was very great gladness. Also day by day, from the first day until the last day, he read from the Book of the Law. And they kept the feast seven days; and on the eighth day there was a sacred assembly, according to the prescribed manner.” These people were rejoicing because they were able to understand what God desired of them and they were obedient in this command.

We are told by the prophet Isaiah that, in that day “… the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose; It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice, even with joy and singing” (Isaiah 35: 1-2). “And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing. With everlasting joy on their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness. And sorrow and sighing shall flee away” (Isaiah 35: 10).

This festival season pictures a time of joy, brethren. And happiness will be the order of the day. It is God’s desire that we observe the meaning of these festival days by rejoicing together at the various places He has chosen to place His name. In that regard, we need to be certain we are each willing to invest what it takes to have joy in our lives and to give joy to others.

God tells us (Deut 16: 15) that when we obey His command to keep this sacred feast as He has prescribed, “…the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you surely rejoice.” Of course, we are not to appear before our God at His festival empty-handed (Deut 16: 16).

He requires an offering based on the blessing He has given us. He requires, also, that we come before Him to eat, and to enjoy the tithe we have saved for this purpose, as we are to appear before Him to learn to fear Him, always (Deut 14: 22-27). And finally, we are to come to hear and to learn to keep the Law of God (Deut31: 11-13).

So, brethren, this is a time God has provided for His people to really come to know one another and to come to learn more of Him. We will have this opportunity to be together, to set a right example for one another, to learn to hold fast the truths we have been given and to make these days a real blessing for all of God’s people.

Let us attend this festival season together, brethren. Let us rejoice in the fact that God is a merciful God, easy to be entreated, willing to forgive our sins if we have a repentant attitude. And let us be thankful for God’s Spirit dwelling within us, which allows us to have a mind receptive to God and all His Ways. It is through that Spirit that God will raise us up in that day and we will be changed, and will be like the Father and the Son.

Yes, we have much to be thankful for, brethren. But the real happiness and joy and prosperity pictured by the Feast of Tabernacles will come upon this earth when the righteous rule of Jesus Christ under the Father is established. When that happens, the entire universe will shout for joy!

In Christian love,

Edwin Pope

Don’t Keep Christmas

March 1, 2001July 14, 2023

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Introduction

Were you shocked when you read the title of this booklet? Was your first thought that the publishers of this booklet either embrace a non-Christian faith, or that they are atheists? Surely, a person calling himself Christian would not possibly suggest to NOT OBSERVE such an important Christian holiday, you might say. After all, it celebrates the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ! Or, does it? Have you ever questioned the validity of Christmas?

Is Christmas a biblically commanded festival? Does the Bible even mention Christmas? Where did Christmas and its customs originate? How did Christmas become a Christian festival? What do Christmas customs have to do with the birth of Jesus Christ? And finally, what does God have to say about the celebration of Christmas? Does it matter to Him whether we keep Christmas? Does He approve of it? Or does He condemn it? The answers may astound you!

Christmas Celebrations Before Christ

Actually, the origins of Christmas and its customs are no secret at all. Every good encyclopedia, as well as many other publications, contain information about the origins and customs of Christmas.

In 1994, Reader’s Digest published a book, entitled, “Why in the World?” Beginning on page 190, the question is asked, “Why do we celebrate Christmas?” The authors continue: “If the question offends or the answer seems obvious, read on… A feast with the semblance of Christmas, Sacaea, was celebrated thousands of years before Christ’s birth. In 2000 BC, in what is now Iraq, a five-day festival with exchanges of gifts, the performance of plays, accompanied by processions and merrymaking, marked the death of winter and heralded the New Year… It is likely that those beliefs from the East spread into central Europe… In the depths of winter, for example, people lit bonfires in the hope of reviving the dying Sun and bringing warmth to the ground. Also, they decorated their homes with evergreens – holly and firs – to show dormant seeds and lifeless plants that all was not dead. When the Sun eventually shone again, they rejoiced in their success and no doubt vowed to repeat the magic forever after.

“Further north, along the Baltic and in Scandinavia, a winter festival known as Yule honored the gods Odin and Thor. Great logs blazed, minstrels sang, famous legends were recounted, and villagers drank lustily from horns of mead.”

In this context, the Encyclopedia Britannica (1910-11), 11^th edition, Vol. 6, points out on p. 294 that “in Britain the 25^th of December was a festival long before the conversion to Christianity… The ancient peoples of the Angli began the year on the 25^th of December…”

Reader’s Digest’s “Why in the World?” continues on page 190: “In the Roman Empire, a week-long orgy of feasting and wild revelry, the Saturnalia, was held in mid-December, when the sun was approaching its lowest. The winter solstice – the turning point of the year, when the length of the day began to increase – was marked by a sacred day called Dies Natalis Invicti Solis (“Birthday of the Unconquered Sun”). During the Saturnalia, the Romans decked their houses with laurels and greenery; friends exchanged presents… It was a season of general rejoicing, with good will to all men.

“The Persians, too, burned fires at the winter solstice. Their feast revered Mithras, the god of light and guardian against evil. Soldiers and traders spread the worship of Mithras to Europe, where for a time the belief rivaled Christianity. [Later in this booklet, we will discuss the worship of this Persian god Mithras, as well as other pagan gods, in more detail.]

Different Dates for Christmas Proposed

“No precise date is known for the birth of Christ, but it is certain that He was born late in the reign of Herod the Great, king of Judea until his death in what we now call 4 BC. For centuries after His death, several different dates, from April to December, were proposed for the celebration of Christmas. January 6, believed to mark Christ’s baptism, was widely observed as Christmas Day, and still is in some countries by Orthodox Christians…

“In time, Christians almost everywhere accepted December 25 as Christmas Day, a date coinciding roughly with celebrations for the winter solstice, Yule and Saturnalia…”

Early Christians Did Not Celebrate Christmas

The Encyclopedia Britannica (1910-11), 11th edition, Vol. 6, adds on page 293: “As late as 245 Origen… repudiates as sinful the very idea of keeping the birthday of Christ ‘as if he were a king Pharaoh.’”

Other early Christian writers likewise objected to Christmas celebrations. As the Protestant Church Lexicon, 1959, Vol. 3, points out on page 1742: “The church of the time of the martyrs rejected with disgust such a birthday celebration, pointing at the pagan birthday celebrations and their cults.”

Tom Flynn writes on page 42 in “The Trouble with Christmas”: “[I]f you wanted to search the New Testament world for peoples who attached significance to birthdays, your search would quickly narrow to pagans. The Romans celebrated the birthdays of the Caesars, and most non-Christian Mediterranean religions attached importance to the natal feasts of a pantheon of supernatural figures.”

Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Vol. 3, concurs: “The celebration of Christmas on December 25 in the church begins only in the middle of the 4^th century. Until then, the opposition against it was in some cases very severe (Origen, Arnobius, Clemens Alexandria, Epiphanius), since it was considered a pagan custom to celebrate with festivities the birthdays of kings.”

The Catholic Encyclopedia (1914), Vol. 3, p. 724, adds the following: “Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the Church. Irenaeus and Tertullian omit it from their lists of feasts; Origen… asserts… that in the Scriptures sinners alone, not saints, celebrate their birthdays.”

A more recent article entitled, “In Search of Christmas,” published in the U.S. News & World Report, December 23, 1996, p. 56, explains: “The earliest celebrations of the Nativity were surprisingly late. There is no record of official observance of Christ’s birth until the fourth century… The third-century church father Origen had declared it a sin to even think of keeping Christ’s birthday… There is no mention in the New Testament of Christians gathering to commemorate the birth of Jesus…”

Continuing with the quote from Reader’s Digest’s “Why in the World?” on page 190: “In England after the Civil War, Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans outlawed Christmas celebrations as heathen… The same situation had prevailed in the New World since 1621, when a law passed by Governor Bradford of the Plymouth Colony prohibited Christmas observance…”

In a television interview in 1991, British scientist and Professor J.M.Golby, co-author of the book, “The Making of the Modern Christmas,” commented as well on the fact that certain Protestant reformers condemned the celebration of Christmas, and why they did so. He pointed out that “Calvin and Knox were very much against Christmas for a variety of reasons, one of them being that… it’s not mentioned in the gospels, so why celebrate Christmas? Secondly, by the 17^th century and the Reformation, the whole association of Christmas with the Roman Catholic Church – of the pomp and ceremony and feasts and so on – were anathema. And so that’s another reason why Christmas was condemned by men like Knox…”

In the United States, Christmas celebrations became “as varied as the peoples who had come to the NewLand. In general, Catholics, Episcopalians, Lutherans and the Dutch settlers rejoiced, both in church and out, while Baptists, Presbyterians and Quakers tended to shun all observance of the holiday.” (Editors of Life, “The Pageantry of Christmas,” p. 60).

An account in the New York Times of December 26, 1855, reads: “The churches of the Presbyterians, Baptists and Methodists were not open on Dec. 25 except where some mission schools had a celebration. They do not accept the day as a Holy One, but the Episcopalian, Catholic and German churches were all open.”

Pagan Origin of Christmas Customs

As we know, Christmas is closely associated with a variety of customs. Let’s look in detail at the origins of some of the most popular Christmas customs.

Christmas Carols

Regarding Christmas carols, the Reader’s Digest publication “Why in the World?” says on page 192: “The first Christmas songs, written in Latin and solemn in tone, were probably composed in the fourth century, when the Roman Church made the festival a holiday. But carols date back to pagan times. The Greeks used them in plays, and Romans sang them during the Saturnalia… For centuries, the Church banned carols because of their heathen associations.”

Christmas Gifts

Another very popular custom associated with Christmas is the exchange of presents. It is claimed that this custom originated with the biblical example of the Magi or wise men, giving presents to the Christ Child. However, Reader’s Digest points out the following in “Why in the World?”, on page 194: “The Romans gave gifts at their Saturnalia… Like so many other seasonal traditions, it is difficult to say whether that of Christmas gifts has pagan or Christian origin.”

But it is not really that difficult to see that this custom is pagan in origin. For instance, the Encyclopedia of Religion, 1987 ed., article “Christmas,” shows the association of exchanging gifts with pagan customs, when it states: “Giving gifts at Christmas probably originated with the pagan Roman custom of exchanging gifts (strenae) at the New Year.”

The Bibliotheca Sacra, Vol. 12, pp. 153-155, concurs: “The interchange of presents between friends is a like characteristic of Christmas and the Saturnalia, and must have been adopted by Christians from the Pagans, as the admonition of Tertullian plainly shows.”

But what about the idea that the custom of exchanging presents at Christmas derived from the Biblical fact that the Magi gave presents to Christ? Frankly, there is no association or connection whatsoever. The Magi or wise men sought the “king of the Jews.” And in approaching Christ as King, they followed the Oriental custom of bringing Him presents. They did not exchange presents amongst themselves. It is also interesting to analyze the kind of presents that they gave to Jesus.

Das Beste, a Reader’s Digest publication, brought out a book in 1990 entitled, “Wunder und Rätsel der Heiligen Schrift.” They point out on page 278: “In one of his sermons, the monk Elfric wrote in the 10^th century, ‘The gold belongs to a king; frankincense belongs to services; and myrrh is used for the bodies of the dead, so that they can be preserved longer. The… wise men worshipped Christ and brought Him symbolic presents. The gold represented Him to be a true king [cp. Rev. 19:16]; frankincense represented Him to be the true God [and our High Priest, cp. Hebr. 4:14-15]; and myrrh represented the fact that He could die then, but that He is now immortal for all eternity.’”

We should also note that the Magi did not visit Christ along with the shepherds on the same night Christ was born. Rather, they visited Joseph, Mary and the Christ Child a considerable time after the birth of Jesus. They only appeared in Jerusalem after Jesus was born in Bethlehem (Matt. 2:1). When the Magi arrived in Bethlehem, the family was staying in a house (Matt. 2:11) – no longer in a stable (Luke 2:6-7). At that time, Jesus was not a newborn baby or “Babe” (Luke 2:12, 16), but a “young Child.” (Matt. 2:9, 11, 13-15). Herod ordered the death of all male children, “from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men.” (Matt. 2:16).

As an aside, the Magi, or wise men, are misrepresented in the “Christmas story” in other respects as well. The P.M. magazine published an article some time ago, entitled, “What do we know about the Three Holy Kings?” It pointed out:

“That they [the Magi] became kings, can be accredited to the theologian Tertullian (160 until 220). He wrote, ‘in the east, Magi were normally kings.’ So we see how quickly the wise men of the Bible had become kings… According to Persian tradition, these Magi were descendants of the ancient Median priesthood… In the gospel, we are not told how many they were. The oriental churches speak of twelve Magi.

“Jacob of Edessa (640-708), one of the most important ancient writers of the Church of the Jacobites, writes: ‘The Magi were from Persia, but they were not three, as portrayed by artists for the people, as derived from the threeness of the gifts of gold, myrrh and frankincense, but rather twelve, as can be seen in many traditions. Those who came were princes and well-respected persons from the country of Persia. Many people, more than a thousand men, accompanied them, so that Jerusalem became very excited when they arrived.’”

The article also speculates that the number of the Magi was reduced to “three,” not because of the three types of gifts mentioned, but because another argument for the Trinity was searched for. Allegedly, the remains of the “three kings” rest today in the dome of Cologne in Germany. However, P.M. notes that “the garments, in which the bones are wrapped, were made in the second or third century after Christ in Syria.”

The Christian Church “adopted” the pagan custom of exchanging gifts on December 25 and incorporated it into its own “faith,” by giving it a “Christian” mantle. This custom was not taken from the Bible or the visit of the Magi in Bethlehem, and it had nothing to do with the fact that the Magi had given presents to Christ.

Santa Claus

Closely associated with the giving of presents at Christmas time is the figure of Santa Claus, also called St. Nicholas. Countless parents have explained to their surprised children that it was “that old man with a white beard and a red suit” who secretly placed presents under the Christmas tree while they were asleep. And the innocent children believed their parents, of course, until they learned the truth. Was it a “harmless” lie? Children have been raised with the implicit teaching that not every lie is bad. So they, in turn, adopt that thought process in their own lives. Or else, they began to mistrust their parents in other areas of life as well.

According to legend, there was a Catholic priest who allegedly gave gifts to children in December. This priest was supposedly the Bishop of Myra, and he was called “Nicholas.” He reportedly died on December 6, 326 AD. This is the “official” explanation, as to why the “day of St. Nicholas” is celebrated today on December 6. Many historians doubt, however, that there is any legitimacy to this legend. They even question whether such a priest ever existed.

One record that was published under Pope Paul VI in 1969 raises doubts whether Nicholas was a saint or whether he was only a “legendary” hero, if he even lived at all. Since 1969, the Catholic Church has left it to its followers to decide for themselves whether or not to worship Nicholas as a saint.

On the other hand, it is a historical fact that pagans did worship a pagan god that shows great similarities with the modern Santa Claus. This pagan deity was the old Germanic god “Wodan.” He was called “Odin” in Scandinavia. Wodan or Odin was a sun god. According to pagan belief, he gave his life for the world by “hanging on a tree” or a cross for nine nights, after which he was “pierced by a spear.”

In Scandinavian legend, Odin [or Wodan] was called “All-Father.” He was viewed as “the chief god in a pagan trinity… and this trinity became the creator of man.” (cp. Earl W. Count, “4000 Years of Christmas,” 1948, p. 52). In Germanic legends, Wodan [or Odin] had a holy tree, and when someone came close to that tree on December 25, he found presents under it. In addition, Wodan’s day on which he was worshipped was December 6. Wodan or Odin is portrayed as an old man with a big hat, a wide coat, and a long gray beard, who is riding a horse. Although the modern Santa Claus rides a sleigh pulled by reindeer, this was not always the case. According to tradition, Santa Claus originally rode a horse.

Earl W. Count, B.D., Ph.D., Professor of Anthropology, states in “4000 Years of Christmas,” on pp. 11 and 54: “We do not really know when the Christ Child… was born; or the time and place when Christmas was first celebrated; or exactly how it was that, over the centuries, a bishop-saint of Asia Minor and a pagan god of the Germans merged to become Santa Claus… Of most interest to us, however, is the fact that Wodan [or Odin] has become – Santa Claus, or, as he is better called, St. Nicholas.”

Other pagan gods might have been responsible too for shaping the modern picture of Santa Claus. In ancient times, a fireplace served as the natural entrance and exit of the gods of fire and solar gods when they visited homes. Each year, dressed in a pointed fiery red cap and red jacket, fire-gods traveled from the distant heavens to visit homes and distribute favors or punishments. It should not be hard to see the connection between the ancient superstitions about hearth spirits and the modern figure of Santa Claus using the chimney, with the shoes and the stockings hung by the fireplace.

Where did the name “Santa Claus,” or “Nicholas,” come from? In Revelation 2:6, we are introduced to the sect of Nicolaitans which taught and practiced wrong concepts and doctrines. [They especially preached the heresy of “grace without works.” The Bible, on the other hand, makes it very clear that, although “eternal life” is offered to us by grace, as a gift from God, our reward is going to be given to us “according to our works.” (Rev. 22:12).] Nicolaus, the founder of the sect of the Nicolaitans, was a Gentile convert, but he later turned away from his conversion. This “Nicolaus” is none other than “Nicholas” or “Santa Claus.” In German, for instance, the similarities of these two names are even more striking. “Nicolaus,” the founder of the “Nicolaitans,” is rendered in German as “Nikolaus” – and “Santa Claus” in German is “Nikolaus” as well.

In pagan legends, spirits or gods of the water were worshipped as “Nick” or “Nickel.” All of them were worshipped on December 6. Female gods of the water were called “Nixen” (the German expression for “mermaids”). In these legends, Santa Claus or St. Nicholas is accompanied by a servant, called “Knecht Ruprecht.” In “The Pageantry of Christmas,” published by the editors of Life magazine, we are told on page 62: “Knecht Ruprecht, the assistant to St. Nicholas, … was as capable of punishing as he was of rewarding, and the horns on his head reveal his demonic origin… He was also known as Black Peter.”

Christmas Candles & Christmas Cakes

Christmas candles play an extremely important role in the celebration of Christmas. But why do people light candles at Christmas? Reader’s Digest’s “Why in the World?” explains on page 195: “Ancient peoples, aware of the changing seasons, lit fires to encourage the return of spring. Romans, during their Saturnalia, decked their homes with lighted candles and greenery… When we put candles or fairly lights on a Christmas tree today, we are following traditions of ancient Rome.”

It is also “customary” to bake cakes around Christmas time. But this, too, is a pagan custom that the Roman Church adopted and incorporated into its belief system. The Kalifornische Staatszeitung published an article in its December 21, 1984, edition, entitled, “Older Than Christmas,” stating on page 25: “The custom to bake at this time of year [at Christmas time] specially formed cakes is older than Christmas itself. The Egyptians and Romans sacrificed to their gods at the end of the year loaf-shaped cakes, as well as animals and men made out of paste or baking soda. Almost the same symbolic figures can be found amongst Germanic tribes which asked the fertility goddess, at that time, with bread sacrifices for her blessings of home and farmland. For centuries, the superstition was preserved among the peoples that Christmas cakes, fantastically formed, had power to bring about luck and fortune.”

The Christmas Tree

Perhaps the most cherished Christmas custom of all is the Christmas tree. The Christmas tree, an evergreen tree, was a pagan object of worship. It exemplifies on a large scale its pagan and demonic origins and the incorporation of pagan customs into orthodox Christianity.

First, consider this quote from the Reader’s Digest, “Why in the World?” On page 210 they discuss the question as to why people touch wood or knock on wood for so-called “good luck.” “The belief that touching wood will placate the evil spirits goes back to pagan times, when trees were held sacred as the abode of gods. These gods… chose some trees to be ever green, a sign of immortality. Touching a tree was a mark of respect to the gods, a request for favor to be granted or thanks for one already given.”

One of those pagan gods who lived in sacred trees was Attis of Phrygia (discussed more fully later in this booklet). He was a god of vegetation and a “tree spirit.” James G. Frazer points out in his book, “The Golden Bough,” on pp. 298, 297: “The original character of Attis as a tree-spirit is brought out plainly by the part which the pine tree plays in his legend and ritual… After his death Attis is said to have changed into a pine tree… At the spring equinox (22nd March) a pine-tree was cut in the woods and brought into the sanctuary of [Phrygian goddess] Cybele, where it was treated as a divinity. It was adorned with woolen bands and wreaths of violets, for violets were said to have sprung from the blood of Attis.”

Attis was not the only “tree spirit.” The god of Egypt, Osiris, was also a tree-spirit. He was a pagan god “whose annual death and resurrection have been celebrated in so many lands.” (James G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, p. 301). Frazer also points out, on page 309, that “in inscriptions, Osiris is referred to as the ‘one in the tree.’”

Then, Frazer introduces us to the Greek god Dionysus or Bacchus, the bull-shaped god of the vine. “Like the other gods of vegetation…, Dionysus was believed to have died a violent death, but to have been brought to life again; and his sufferings, death, and resurrection were enacted in sacred rites.” (Frazer, p. 322). In addition to being the god of the vine, Dinoysus was “also a god of trees in general. Thus we are told that almost all the Greeks sacrificed to ‘Dionysus of the tree.’ In Boeotia one of his titles was ‘Dionysus in the tree.’… Amongst the trees particularly sacred to him, in addition to the vine, was the pine-tree. The Delphic oracle commanded the Corinthians to worship a particular pine-tree ‘equally with the god.’” (Frazer, pp. 321-322).

The pine tree was believed to be the abode of pagan gods. Actually, pagan gods supposedly changed into pine trees. As such, the pine tree was adorned with violets and treated as a divinity or deity – in fact, it was worshipped as a god. The similarities with the modern custom of decorating an evergreen or pine tree as a Christmas tree, and singing carols in front of it, are striking. And to think that those practices derived from the worship of pagan gods or demons is frightening!

Ralph Woodrow wrote in “Babylon, Mystery Religion,” ed. 1981, on page 152: “The Christmas tree… recapitulates the idea of tree worship…, gilded nuts and balls symbolizing the sun… All of the festivities of the winter solstice have been absorbed into Christmas day… The Christmas tree [was absorbed] from the honors paid to Odin’s sacred fir.”

How Pagan Customs Became “Christianized”

Professor Golby made additional comments on television regarding the incorporation of the pagan origins of Christmas and its customs into the “Christian” religion: “Christmas trees are evergreen… Obviously they are part of the old pagan festivals… What I think is the amazing thing about the Christian church is the way it’s been able to absorb things and accept them, in fact, accept pagan figures, and incorporate them into the church.”

Francis Owen agrees. He stated in his work, “The Germanic People,” on page 209: “Many of the beliefs of this ancient Germanic religion… were only superficially modified by the teachings of the Christian church. Old beliefs and customs are hard to eradicate.”

It is a historical fact that the Christian church did not eradicate pagan Christmas customs, but it rather embraced and incorporated the practices by giving them a “Christian” meaning. Listen to this quote from the publishers of Life, in “The Pageantry of Christmas,” on page 10: “The followers of Mithras, a Persian sun-god whose cult was brought to Rome by returning legionnaires and became the chief rival of Christianity, celebrated December 25 as Dies Solis Invicti Nati (“Birthday of the Unconquered Sun”). The Romans themselves had long celebrated the solstice season as the Saturnalia, honoring Saturn, the god of agriculture…The exchange of gifts became an important part of the festivities [of Saturnalia]. They were simple at first – wax candles or clay dolls – but they slowly grew more elaborate. Christians began absorbing these old customs and infusing them with Christian meaning in order to help spread the faith. Many Church fathers considered the method dangerous…

“But most of the Christian missionaries who moved into Central and Western Europe as the Roman Empire crumbled, followed the advice of [pope] Gregory the Great. He wrote in 597 that they should not try to put down pagan customs ‘upon the sudden,’ but adapt them ‘to the praise of God.’

“In the North, at the Christmas season, the missionaries found the pagan adherents of the gods Woden and Thor battling the winter’s evil darkness with huge bonfires. In Central Europe, they found the belief that at the death of the old sun, witches and fiery demons came to earth to destroy the fertility of the New Year, and could be dissuaded by presents. In Britain, they found Druids paying tribute to the victory of evergreens over winter’s darkness. The missionaries, heeding Gregory the Great’s advice, made no effort to ‘cut off’ the ‘evil customs.’ As a result, many of them survive as cherished Christmas traditions of today.”

Many other researchers and authors have come to the same conclusions. Arthur Weigall wrote in “The Paganism in our Christianity,” on page 209: “The policy of the Church is to adapt old pagan holy days to Christian ideas, and not to suppress them… The festivals which we call Christmas and Easter are pagan, not Christian, in origin.”

Earl W. Count comments in “4000 Years of Christmas,” on pp. 25-27: “[During the Saturnalia,] the halls of the Romans were decked with boughs of laurel and of green trees, with lighted candles and with lamps – for the hovering spirits of darkness were afraid of light… To the Christians, the Saturnalia were an abomination, in homage to a disreputable god [Saturn] who had no existence anyway… The Church Fathers discovered to their alarm that they were… facing an invasion of pagan customs. The habit of Saturnalia was too strong to be left behind. At first the Church forbade it, but in vain…. If the Saturnalia would not be forbidden, let it be tamed. The Church Fathers now sought to point the festival toward the Christian Sun of Righteousness…. The Church finally succeeded in taking the merriment, the greenery, the lights, and the gifts from Saturn and giving them to the Babe of Bethlehem.”

U.S. News & World Report, December 23, 1996, concurs on p. 59: “Most widely held is the view that the holiday was an intentional ‘Christianization’ of Saturnalia and other pagan festivals… As one historian put it: ‘The pagan Romans became Christians – but the Saturnalia remained.’”

The Reader’s Digest article, “Why in the World?”, points out on p. 191: “Worldwide, the Church in general took a pragmatic stance. Unable to ban the pagan excesses that had become part of the celebration, it endeavored to rid them of their undesirable features, and welcomed the refurbished rites into Christmas rejoicing as if they were sacred. The old-time Christmas customs survived, and new ones were added. Christmas became, as we know it today, a magical mixture of Christian devotion and pagan pleasures, a festival that survives through popular demand.”

Yes, Christmas and its customs are pagan, not Christian, in origin. The Roman Catholic Church, rather than eradicating them, gave them a “Christian” meaning. But that did not make them Christian. The December 1981 edition of the U.S. Catholic admits on page 32: “It is impossible to separate Christmas from its pagan origins.”

The U.S. News and World Report stated in its December 23, 1996 edition, on page 60, that the Puritans “were correct when they pointed out… that Christmas was nothing but a pagan festival covered with a Christian veneer.”

Church of Rome Ordered Christmas Celebrations

As we have seen, when the Church was unable to forbid Christmas celebrations, the customs were given a superficial “Christian” meaning and, as such, were then permitted. Later on, though, they were actually commanded.

Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart writes in its third edition: “The origin of [Christian celebrations of] Christmas is to be seen in the Church of Rome.”

The Encyclopedia Americana (1944), concurs: “A feast was established in memory of this event [the birth of Jesus] in the fourth century. In the fifth century the Western Church ordered it to be celebrated forever on the day of the old Roman feast of the birth of Sol, as no certain knowledge of the day of Christ’s birth existed.”

It was the Roman Catholic Church that ordered its followers to keep the pagan customs of Christmas to demonstrate the “victory of Christ, the true sun, over the pagan cult” of sun worship. (Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart).

As the San Diego Union Tribune points out on page 7 of its TV Week supplement for December 17-23, 2000, Christmas “went from being the feast day of the risen sun to the feast day of the risen son.” And those non-Catholic denominations that observe Christmas today as a Christian festival do not do so in compliance with biblical commands, but in obedience to the lead of the Catholic Church.

Worship of the Pagan God Mithra Today

We have already touched on the Persian god Mithra or Mithras on several occasions, and we saw that Christianity did not eradicate Mithraic teachings and customs, but rather absorbed them. We want to focus our attention now on the pagan worship of this Persian god Mithra, as it is fascinating to see to what extent Mithraic teachings and customs survived in modern so-called Christianity. The truth is quite amazing!

The German “P.M.” magazine published a few years ago an article, entitled, “Can You Imagine to Believe on Mithras?” It began this way: “An early day in the year 180 A.D. A usual Sunday in the harbor town of Ostia in front of the gates of Rome. Commotion in the different parts of town. Everywhere we see groups of men moving through the narrow village quarters… But no one takes note of them… Everyone knows where the men go to: It is Sunday, the day of the Sun – the men are going to services.

“Are they Christians? Do we experience here a typical scene from the early days of this religion? No – the men worship another god. Mithras is the name of that transcendent being from whom they expect salvation. And each year in the winter they celebrate his birthday: in the night of December 25 with a sort of service which we could call today midnight mass…

“The Mithras cult still influences our lives today… Mithras was the main god of the Roman legions. In Germany alone, forty Mithras relics were unearthed – twelve of them in or close to Frankfurt… It was Emperor Constantine who was pushing in the Council of Nice (which is in Turkey today) in 325 to unite his subjects under one faith… Although the emperor himself belonged to the cult of the sun worship (he was only baptized on his deathbed), he decided on Christianity as the common confession for all the Romans. In order to make the new religion acceptable for the followers of Mithras, he declared Sunday as the common day of rest for all of his empire…

“Still another decision was supposed to bring Christians and Mithraites closer together: The birthday of Jesus was declared to be on the same day on which Mithras was supposedly born (In the year of 354, the 25^th of December is mentioned for the first time). Until then, Christians had not celebrated Christmas.”

The article also published numerous pictures and photographs. Under one of them, the following is stated: “In the late Mithras cult, the three-fold God appears… What relationship exists with the Christian Trinity is obvious.”

What is even more striking is the fact that the Bible nowhere teaches the Trinity. God is identified as consisting of two beings – the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit is not a person or the third being within the God Family, but rather the emanating power of God. But here we see how this unbiblical concept of the Trinity found its way into Christianity – through pagan belief systems such as the belief system of Mithras, a cult which was both absorbed and, at the same time, “Christianized” by the Roman Church.

The great influence and impact that pagan concepts, as taught in the Mithras cult, had on orthodox Christianity cannot be underestimated and overemphasized. Listen to this additional explanation from Esme Wynne-Tyson’s “Mithras, The Fellow in the Cap,” as stated on pp. 22 and 24: “From the first, Mithras was equated with the Sun and with light… In brief, he is a pagan Christ… Mithras was not only the Sun-God, but the Mediator between mankind and the Supreme Being… His birthday was celebrated in the Mithraic calendar on the 25^th [of] December. Sunday… was consecrated to him, and known as the Lord’s Day long before the Christian era. His rebirth was commemorated at Easter.”

Edward Carpenter pointed out in “Pagan & Christian Creeds: Their Origin and Meaning,” 1921, p. 21: “Mithra was born in a cave, and on the 25^th [of] December. He was born of a Virgin… His great festivals were the winter solstice and the Spring equinox (Christmas and Easter). He had twelve companions or disciples (the twelve months). He was buried in a tomb, from which however he rose again; and his resurrection was celebrated yearly with great rejoicings. He was called Savior and Mediator; and sometimes figured as a Lamb.”

John M. Robertson wrote in “Pagan Christs, Studies in Comparative Hierology,” on pp. 305, 306, 327: “The first day of the week, Sunday, was apparently from time immemorial consecrated to Mithra… We have some exact information as to the two chief Mithraic ceremonies or festivals, those of Christmas and Easter…, the birthday of the Sun-God and the period of his sacrifice and his triumph. That Christmas is a solar festival of unknown antiquity which the early Christians appropriated to their Christ…, is no longer denied by competent Christian scholars… The truth is… that Mithraism was not overthrown; it was merely transformed. It had gone too far to be overthrown; the question was whether it should continue to rival Christianity or be absorbed by it.”

As we have seen, it was absorbed. And many, if not most of its pagan elements, customs, and teachings were absorbed as well – given a “Christian” mantle. This is why the Orthodox Christian world celebrates Sunday, even though God tells us to keep the Sabbath holy – the time from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset (cp. Ex. 20:8-11). (For more information on this topic, please request a free copy of the booklet, “Europe in Prophecy”).

Listen to this remarkable quote from H.G. Well’s, author of fictitious novels such as “The Time Machine,” and “The Invisible Man.” He also wrote, “The Outline of History,” pointing out on page 543: “It would seem the Christians adopted Sun-day as their chief day of worship instead of the… Sabbath, from the Mithraic cult.”

And indeed they did. And due to the Mithraic cult and other pagan teachings, pagan annual holidays such as Christmas or Easter are observed today. At the same time, orthodox Christianity does not keep those annual days holy that God has made holy – such as Passover, Days of Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, Trumpets, Atonement, or Feast of Tabernacles (cp. Lev. 23). The adaptation of Mithraic and other pagan teachings is the reason why non-Christian customs are embraced and believed in as “Christian” doctrines.

Listen to this quote from Funk and Wagnall’s New Encyclopedia, Vol. 17, on “Mithraism”: “…the cult of Mithra, the ancient Persian god of light and wisdom… Mithra became the god of the sun, which was worshipped in his name… It was a great rival to Christianity in the Roman world… Mithraism was similar to [so-called] Christianity in many respects, for example, in … the adoration of the shepherds at Mithra’s birth, the adoption of Sundays and of December 25 (Mithra’s birthday) as holy days, and in the belief in the immortality of the soul.”

Nowhere does the Bible tell us to “adore” shepherds. Those who do that today while re-enacting the nativity scene, actually follow the pagan worshippers of Mithra. Neither does the Bible teach that we have an immortal soul. Quite to the contrary, we are told by God that the “soul that sins will die.” (Ezek 18:4, 20). If we repent, then our souls will be “saved from death” (James 5:20). Rather than having a soul, immortal or not, man is a soul (cp. Gen. 2:7: “man became a living soul”). And if man sins and does not repent of it, then man, the soul, will die the eternal death. The concept, then, that we have an immortal soul does not come from the Bible, but from paganism and the cultic teachings of Mithra and other pagan gods.

That Mithraism did not die out, but instead, survived in Christianity, can also be seen from this quote taken from Funk and Wagnall’s New Encyclopedia, Vol. 24, under “Sun Worship”: “… In ancient Persia worship of the sun was an integral part of the elaborate cult of Mithras… Sun worship persisted in Europe even after the introduction of Christianity, as is evidenced by its disguised survival in such traditional Christian practices as the Easter bonfire and the burning of the Yule Log on Christmas.”

That Mithraism was the national religion of Persia and a dominant force in ancient times is alluded to in the Bible as well. In Ezra 1:8 and 4:7 we read about the Persian treasurer “Mithredath.” This word means literally, “gift of Mithra.” Prominent people were actually named after that Persian god.

Worship of the Pagan God Attis Today

While the cult of Mithras had a great influence on Christianity, the worship of Mithras was by no means the only pagan religion that found its way into Christianity. As we already saw, pagan worship of other gods such as Saturn, Thor, Wodan or Odin was absorbed as well. And so were elements from the cult of Attis, a god in Phrygia. We read in the Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets about Attis:

“The cult of Attis strongly influenced early Christianity… Attis was a son of the Goddess’s earthly incarnation, the virgin Nana, who miraculously conceived him by eating an almond or a pomegranate… He grew up to become a sacrificial victim and Savior, slain to bring salvation to mankind. His body was eaten by his worshippers in the form of bread. He was resurrected as the ‘Most High God…’ Attis’ passion was celebrated on the 25^th of March [other sources have 22^nd of March], exactly nine months before the festival of his birth, the 25^th of December… The day of Attis’ death was Black Friday… The god died and was buried. He descended into the underworld. On the third day he arose again from the dead… This was the Sunday; the god arose in glory… Christians ever afterward kept Easter Sunday with carnival processions derived from the mysteries of Attis.”

Michael Jordan writes about Attis in “Encyclopedia of God.” He points out: “In Christian times the Easter festival took over the date of the Attis rites.” Have you ever wondered why the Christian world keeps Easter, claiming that Christ was crucified on a Friday and resurrected on a Sunday? The Bible nowhere mentions Easter. The Bible nowhere states that Christ was killed on a Friday and that He was resurrected on a Sunday. In fact, He could not have been, as He was to be dead in the grave for three days and three nights, as Jonah was in the belly of the sea monster (Matt. 12:40). You cannot count three days and three nights from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning. Both history and the Bible prove that Christ was actually crucified Wednesday afternoon and that He was resurrected Saturday before sunset. But as we just read, pagan gods such as Attis were allegedly killed on a Friday and resurrected on a Sunday. And so those pagan customs were incorporated into the doctrines and practices of the Roman Church by replacing pagan gods like Attis with Christ and giving them a “Christian” mantle.

Satan – the Author of a Universal Myth

It should be obvious that all of these similar legends involving different pagan gods and customs and rites, are part of a “universal myth,” as John M. Robertson put it (“Pagan Christs,” p. 307).

Also, Edward Carpenter wrote in “Pagan & Christian Creeds,” beginning on page 25: “The similarity of these ancient pagan legends and beliefs with Christian traditions was indeed so great that it excited the attention and the undisguised wrath of the early Church fathers. They felt no doubt about the similarity [and concluded]… that the Devil – in order to confound the Christians – had, centuries before, caused the pagans to adopt certain beliefs and practices… Justin Martyr for instance describes the institution of the [so-called] Lord’s Supper as narrated in the Gospels, and then goes on to say, ‘Which the wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries of Mithra [and we might add Attis as well], commanding the same thing to be done. For, that bread and a cup of water are placed with certain incantations in the mystic rites of one who is being initiated you either know or can learn.’ Tertullian also says that ‘the devil by the mysteries of his idols imitates even the main part of the divine mysteries.’”

The Bible refers in numerous places to such demonic pagan imitations of what Christ would do, or did do. For instance, Ezek. 8:13-15 describes the worship of “Tammuz” as an abomination. According to legend, Tammuz, or Adonis, was born of a virgin at the time of the winter solstice and was killed by a boar. Every year the maidens wept for him. In the spring a festival of his resurrection was held. (Carpenter, p. 22). This pagan god Tammuz was a Summerian or Syrian god of vegetation, a pagan counterfeit of Jesus Christ.

In 1 Cor. 10:14-22, Paul refers to pagan rites such as those of Mithra or Attis. Paul identifies them with idolatry and admonishes Christians not to have anything to do with them: “Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry… The cup of blessing which we bless [during the annual memorial of Christ’s death at Passover], is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break [at Passover], is it not the communion of the body of Christ? … What am I saying then? That an idol is anything, or what is offered to idols is anything? Rather, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to have fellowship with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the Lord’s table and of the table of demons.”

Worship of pagan gods and participation in its customs are described in the Bible as demon worship. And to introduce pagan rites, which might in some cases look similar to Christian practices, into the true worship of God, is identified with idolatry. Satan knew that God would send Jesus Christ to die for mankind. Many Old Testament scriptures foretell in great detail Christ’s first coming.

Satan’s strategy to oppose God was twofold. First, he influenced people to create a universal myth of a pagan Savior who would be worshipped under different names, and who would have some similarities with Jesus Christ and what He would accomplish, so that people could later view Christ as only “another” Deliverer. Many historians believe that Satan’s universal myth began with the Nimrod of the Bible in Gen. 10:8-12. Legend has it that this “mighty hunter” married his own mother Semiramis. When he died, Satan inspired Semiramis to invent and spread the idea that Nimrod was still alive as a spirit being. She claimed that a full-grown evergreen tree sprang up overnight from a dead tree stump, and that Nimrod would visit the tree and leave gifts there on each anniversary of his birth, December 25. A slightly different version of this account is that the evergreen tree allegedly symbolized Nimrod’s son Tammuz, and that Nimrod came back to life as Tammuz. Later, Semiramis became known and was worshipped under different names as the “Queen of Heaven.”

The second part of Satan’s strategy to oppose God was to see to it that those who believe in and follow Jesus Christ, the Son of God, would be bombarded with the [already existing] aspects of pagan religions, inducing them to absorb those “in the honor and glory of Christ.” Sadly, over the centuries, many who claimed to be Christian, did fall for Satan’s evil tactics and schemes by incorporating into their worship of God certain pagan doctrines, customs and rites.

Counter Arguments of the Carnal Mind

Some may respond by saying, “So what? Why not keep Christmas anyway? Even though Christmas is a pagan festival and its customs are pagan in origin, I do it to honor Christ. And even though the Bible doesn’t command us to keep it, doesn’t God give us the freedom to celebrate the birthday of His Son whenever we want? And further, if we don’t like the ‘paganism’ associated with Christmas, why not just keep Christmas solely to honor Christ, while leaving all the pagan customs behind?”

Yes, we humans can come up with all kinds of reasons to hang on to our traditions and beliefs. We somehow want to justify our actions rather than coming to terms with the truth of the matter, and it quickly becomes evident how strongly our beliefs entrench our customs. We don’t give up easily, even when shown to be wrong.

For example, we know that Christmas has become totally commercialized, and it is being kept alive by commercialism. As U.S. News & World Report points out in its December 23, 1996 article, on page 64: “To turn Christmas into a purely religious celebration now might cheer those who want to ‘take back Christmas.’… But such an observance ‘would lack the cultural resonance and impact of a holiday deeply rooted in the marketplace.’ If Christmas came to that… ‘we probably wouldn’t keep it as a society.’”

And, while Christmas is widely touted as a time of “peace on earth and good will toward men,” it is a well-known fact that Christmas is the time of year in the Western world when more crimes are committed than at any other time. It is a time when alcoholism runs rampant. It is a time when commerce reaches its peak of illogical and irresponsible conduct and behavior, and people incur credit card debts that they can never repay, only to fulfill their “obligation” to give gifts to others. Parents lie to their children, telling them that Santa Claus will come through the chimney to bring Christmas presents, and that if they don’t behave, Santa Claus won’t bring them presents at all.

We know what the world says about Christmas, but what does God have to say about this celebration? Although the word “Christmas” is never used in the Bible, are there guidelines and principles on how to look at this issue? Absolutely! Let’s see.

Don’t Mix Pagan Customs with the Worship of God!

Do you know that you can be sincere in your worship of God and Christ, and still worship in vain? Christ clearly said in Matt. 15:7-9: “Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying: ‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. And in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’” Who can doubt that the celebration of Christmas and the observance of its customs are pursuant to the commandments of men? Nowhere in the Bible are we told to do these things! And Christ said, this kind of religious worship which is based on men’s traditions is “in vain” – it is useless. Rather, we are expressly told how to worship God.

Note what God told Israel about how to and how not to worship Him as recorded in Deut. 12:29-32: “When the Lord your God cuts off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess, and you displace them and dwell in their land, take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.’ You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way; for every abomination to the Lord which He hates they have done to their gods… Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it.”

The celebration of Christmas and of Christ’s birth in general is in clear violation of the above-stated command. The very date and festival of Christmas were adopted from paganism, and so were its customs. Professing Christians celebrating Christmas today may think that they do it to honor and worship God – but they repeat exactly the rites that pagans used to serve their gods – and God thunders at us: “You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way!!!” They added Christmas celebrations to their worship, while taking away the observance of God’s true annual Holy Days.

Notice the comments of the Ryrie Study Bible regarding the passage in Deut. 12:30: “The Israelites were not even to inquire about the worship of the Canaanites, lest they be tempted to incorporate aspects of it into their worship of God.”

Who can honestly deny that this is exactly what happened in regard to Christmas celebrations? Orthodox Christianity adopted or incorporated pagan holidays such as Christmas and Easter, rather than suppressing them. They appropriated pagan customs to the worship of Jesus Christ, rather than rejecting and overthrowing them. This practice is called “syncretism” and is strongly prohibited in Scripture. God tells us not to engage in it, but to rid ourselves from everything pagan.

Notice 2 Cor. 6:14-17: “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?… And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God… Therefore, come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is [spiritually] unclean, and I will receive you.”

Christmas Cakes Condemned in Scripture

For example, note God’s condemnation of a religious custom that ancient Israel and Judah were engaged in, as recorded in Jer. 7:16-18: “Therefore, do not pray for this people, nor lift up a cry or prayer for them, nor make intercession to Me; for I will not hear you. Do you not see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke Me to anger.”

The “Queen of Heaven” has been identified as the Assyro-Babylonian goddess Ishtar or Istar (Ryrie Study Bible; Rienecker’s Lexikon zur Bibel, both commenting on Jer. 7:18), from which the name “Easter” is derived. Actually, Ishtar is just another name of Semiramis, the mother/wife of Nimrod. Although primarily a reference to Easter customs, Jer. 7:18 does also include the baking of Christmas cakes. As we saw earlier, that custom was in place long before any “Christian” celebration of Christmas, and it was done to honor pagan deities.

Christmas Tree Condemned in Scripture

Let’s also notice Jer. 10:2-5: “Thus says the Lord: ‘Do not learn the way [Note in the Lamsa Bible: “Religion”] of the Gentiles; do not be dismayed at the signs of heaven, for the Gentiles are dismayed at them. For the customs of the peoples are futile; for one cuts a tree from the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the ax. They decorate it with silver and gold; they fasten it with nails and hammers so that it will not topple. They are upright, like a palm tree, and they cannot speak; they must be carried, because they cannot go themselves. Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, nor can they do any good.”

Here we find a description of the Christmas tree. Some have said, however, that Jer. 10 only talks about a wooden idol that was carved out of a tree, but that it does not refer to decorating a Christmas tree per se. Remember, though, that the pagans believed that their gods ‑ Attis, Osiris, Dionysus ‑ lived as tree spirits in pine trees. They believed that their gods actually changed into those trees, and they carried these sacred trees to a certain place of worship, decorated them, and adored them as deities.

Jer. 10 condemns any kind of religious worship that includes the decoration of a pine tree or a “green tree” (1 Kings 14:23), as well as the religious doctrines associated with such customs. Lamsa continues Jer. 10:8 as follows: “But altogether the vain doctrines of wooden image worship shall be utterly destroyed and consumed.”

Some say they don’t worship the Christmas tree, and that it’s, therefore, all right to decorate a pine tree at Christmas time. However, that is not the way God looks at it. When the Israelites made a golden calf, they argued in a similar fashion. Exodus 32:1-4 records: “Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron, and said to him, ‘Come, make us gods [Margin: ‘Or a god’] that shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ And Aaron said to them, ‘Break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.’ So all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand, and he fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made a molded calf. Then they said, ‘This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!’ So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, ‘Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord.’”

The Israelites used the pagan idol of an animal for the worship of God. They did not believe that God looked like a calf, but they used it as a cultic element in their worship of God, thinking that it somehow represented God. They thought they were worshipping God – after all, they were celebrating a feast to the Lord – and, that their use of a pagan cult object in that worship was acceptable to God. The same can be said about the Christmas tree as described in Jeremiah 10. This tree with its gold, silver and blue and purple decorations (Jer. 10:9) – today, we could add “silver tinsel” – was used as a cultic means or object to worship God. But, that is exactly what God condemns.

When the Israelites, at the time of Moses, built the golden calf, they invented their own cultic objects and means of worship, as well as the time for their religious festival. They had obviously adopted these worship rites from their stay in pagan Egypt. But, God did not accept that kind of worship, nor does He do so today. In His eyes, they corrupted themselves (Ex. 32:7) and they worshipped the calf, not God (Ex. 32: 8). God is a jealous God. He insists that He be worshipped in the way that He has set before us. Otherwise, our worship will not be accepted – it will be useless and in vain (Mark 7:5-9, 13).

Could Christ Have Been Born in December?

We have established many facts that show that the festival we call “Christmas” was actually being celebrated by various cultures for thousands of years before the birth of Jesus Christ. We have read quotes from various publications that boldly present the pagan roots of Christmas, along with related customs, which are totally unrelated to Christ. But, even if it were acceptable to celebrate Christ’s birthday [which it is not], do we know when He was born?

Again, we will quote from Professor J.M. Golby, the British historian who co-authored the book entitled, “The Making of the Modern Christmas.” In the aforementioned television interview in 1991, he made the following insightful comments and observations regarding the origin of Christmas and its customs:

“The Christian church has always been very clever in incorporating other practices and going along with things and then turning them towards Christianity. And in pagan times you had midwinter festivals, and you had religious festivals which were pagan and very much associated with things like the going down of the sun. And during winter it was going down – would it ever return? And so you had a day in which you celebrated the sun. And the Mithraic religion, which was a very important religion in the later Roman Empire, had a particular day that celebrated this. And it so happens that it coincides with December 25^th, which the Christian church then adopted as the day of Christ’s birth… There is nothing in the gospels to show that Christ was born on the 25^th of December. In fact, it’s clear that he wouldn’t have been. There wouldn’t have been shepherds out in the fields. It’s just the wrong time of year…”

In addition to the fact that shepherds would not have been in the fields on December 25, there is another reason why Christ could not have been born around December 25. Dr. Cunningham Geikie discusses this additional reason in Holy-Days and Holidays, in the article, “Christmas at Bethlehem.” He writes: “The twenty-fifth day of December… has little in its favor [for the date of the nativity of Christ] beyond the fact that it was the day on which, in antiquity, the return of the sun from its winter absence was kept… It could hardly have been at that season, however, for such a time would surely not have been chosen by the authorities for a public enrollment, which necessitated the population’s traveling from all parts to their natal districts, storm and rain making journeys both unsafe and unpleasant in winter…”

The fact that shepherds were living out in the fields (cp. Luke 2:8) and that a public enrollment was conducted at the time of Christ’s birth (cp. Luke 2:1-7) clearly proves that Christ could not have been born anywhere near December 25. Sheep were never in the field during the winter months. From the middle of October until the middle of March, the sheep would be kept inside, in stables or barns. During that time, there was too much rain, wind and even frost and snow.

The newspaper Wynne Progress published an article on December 21, 1967, entitled, “The Christmas Story,” in which it pointed out numerous discrepancies between the biblical record and Christmas traditions. It stated, “As for the date of December 25, that was chosen by the church during the fourth Century A.D…. The choice seems to have been dictated… by a desire to Christianize the Roman revel that marked the winter solstice. The biblical evidence plainly indicates that Jesus was born during the late summer or early fall. That is the time of year when Palestinian shepherds take their flocks into the field to graze at night.”

Check any chart of the Israelite year. It will show that the seventh month, the month of Tishri, in September/October, ends with the beginning of the rainy season. During the eighth month, the month of Marcheschwan, in October/November, the weather is “rainy.”

The ninth month, Chislev, in November/December, marks the beginning of winter, with rain and snow. Christ made it clear that a flight of His Church had better not take place “in winter,” Matt. 24: 20, as this would be very unpleasant, due to the severe weather conditions. Song of Solomon 2:11 reads: “The winter is past, the rain is gone.” Note also Ezra 10:9, 13: “It was the ninth month, on the twentieth of the month; and all the people [in Jerusalem were] trembling… because of the heavy rain… ‘But there are many people; it is the season of the heavy rain, and we are not able to stand outside.’”

Finally, the tenth month, Tebeth, in December/January, is designated as the “coldest month of the year, with hail and snow.” There is no way that Christ could have been born at the end of December, while a public enrollment was going on, and while shepherds and sheep were staying over night in the field. Even if it did not snow at that time, the cold weather and the rain would have made it impossible for both shepherds and sheep to be in the field at night. Further, the Roman authorities would not have chosen that time of year for a public enrollment. Rather than having been born in the winter, it is most likely, as was pointed out before, that Christ was born in late summer or early autumn.

But then — Christ nowhere taught that we should even celebrate His birth – and most certainly not at Christmas time – and most emphatically not with pagan customs, rites and concepts.

Don’t Add to or Take Away from God’s Word!

Moses reminded ancient Israel of a timeless principle when it comes to true worship. We read in Deut. 4:1-2: “Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I teach you to observe, that you may live, and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers is giving to you. You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.” (Cp. Deut. 12:32, Rev. 22:18&19).

We find the same admonition in Proverbs 30:5-6: “Every word of God is pure; He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him. Do not add to His words, lest He rebuke you, and you be found a liar.”

The entire “Christmas story” is a lie and a deception, created by men under the influence of Satan, who is the father of lies (John 8:43-45). So if we contend that Christmas is a festival that honors God, then we add to God’s Word, which has nothing to say about the celebration of Christmas. God will rebuke us, and we will be found “liars,” since we have misrepresented God.

Let’s also note how the apostle Paul approached the Christians in Corinth. Remember, that the Corinthians had been involved, prior to their conversion, with all kinds of pagan practices, including worship of a special pine tree. Paul was undoubtedly aware of that. And so he tells them in 1 Cor. 4:6: “Now, brothers, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, ‘Do not go beyond what is written.’” (NIV)

A similar reminder is recorded in the second letter of John. He states in verse 9: “For if you wander beyond the teaching of Christ, you will leave God behind; while if you are loyal to Christ’s teachings, you will have God too.” (Living Bible).

Those who do celebrate Christmas “go beyond what is written,” and “wander beyond the teaching of Christ,” thereby leaving “God behind.”

The Conclusion of the Matter

We have laid before you the true origins of Christmas and its customs, and we have shown from the Bible that God condemns Christmas celebrations. Knowing this, ask yourself, “Should I celebrate Christmas?” We feel the answer is obvious. The decision, however, is yours to make (Deut. 30:15-16, 19-20). You have heard the conclusion of the matter (Eccl. 12:13). We challenge you to act on it.

The Theory of Evolution, A Fairy Tale for Adults?

January 1, 2001July 13, 2023

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Introduction

The theory of evolution, teaching that species developed gradually into other species, is widely expounded to be the most logical explanation for the origin of plants, animals, mankind, and in fact, the entire universe. It holds that animals have evolved over millions of years and that man is the latest product of this development—the top of the line, so to speak. Though Christianity was originally opposed to this concept, some groups gradually embraced it, with the proviso, however, that God directed the whole process. Other religious people—Christian and non-Christian alike—continue to reject evolution in its entirety, believing in Divine creation.

While theology is divided on the subject, many scientists no longer consider evolution merely a theory. Rather, they regard it as fact, as if science had actually proven its accuracy. It is not surprising then to find evolution being taught in our schools, thus creating a conflict of beliefs between evolution and creation. In our study of this subject, we will look closely at claims made to support this theory, as well as scientific concerns, and what the Bible teaches us about God’s creation. The real facts will become quite apparent in this study, and may surprise you!

What is the Theory of Evolution?

To start with, we need to understand what the theory of evolution professes, and how the theory itself began. In a nutshell, it states that, due to oxygen and other gases, all life on earth began in an organic “soup.” Somehow, two cells developed in that “soup” and all life came into existence through these two cells—one for plants and one for animals. Mankind then is actually nothing more than, as Charles Darwin described it, “a descendant of a mollusk” or some other primordial life form.

This idea did not originate with Charles Darwin, although Darwin was the creator of the present-day theory of evolution. In ancient times it was believed that life was connected to the four elements—earth, fire, water and air. Some philosophers thought that all things came into existence through water. Others believed it was through air. The Greek philosopher Aristotle [384-322 B.C.] taught that life evolved from matter.

Science today teaches that our universe came into being through a “big bang,” in which the universe began as an explosion of incredibly hot plasma from a very small point that then briefly expanded faster than the speed of light, and from which the entire universe with all its matter and energy condensed. All of the planets, stars and galaxies supposedly came from this event.

Is the Theory Provable?

Now, if one were trying to prove the validity of statements made in a court of law, one should ask, “are these statements without contradiction?” and, “can they be proven to be accurate?” Answering these two key questions relative to the subject of evolution will help in our search of the truth of the matter.

So then, we must question the origin of this small nucleus of matter and energy. We must also ask about the origin of the laws of inertia and gravity that make planets rotate on an axis while orbiting the sun. What scientific facts prove this theory? A close examination reveals that this theory indeed has many contradictions, and in fact, the scientific community is divided on the subject.

In his book entitled “Starwatch,” author David Block, Ph.D., MSc., and Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, writes on page 140, “The conventional big bang model of the universe is not the only possible universe model. Our universe contains galaxies and this is a serious problem in the standard big bang cosmology. Galaxies, and the nebulae inside them, should not have formed.” He essentially says that accepting the big bang theory only brings up additional perplexing questions.

Several years ago, Professor Robert Jastrow came to some remarkable conclusions and wrote a book entitled, “God and the Astronomers.” He stated, “The essence of the strange developments is that the universe had, in some sense, a beginning—that it began at a certain moment in time…Some scientists are unhappy with the idea that the world began in this way. Until recently, many of my colleagues preferred the ‘Steady State’ theory, which holds that the universe had no beginning and is eternal. Theologians generally are delighted with the proof that the universe had a beginning, but scientists are curiously upset. Their reactions provide an interesting demonstration of the response of the scientific mind—supposedly a very objective mind—when evidence uncovered by science itself leads to a conflict with the articles of faith in our profession (pp. 3-5).

“Now three lines of evidence—the motions of the galaxies, the laws of thermodynamics, and the life story of the stars—pointed to one conclusion; all indicated that the universe had a beginning… There is no ground for supposing that matter and energy existed before and was suddenly galvanized into action… It is simpler to postulate creation ex nihilo…Scientists cannot bear the thought of a natural phenomenon which cannot be explained, even with unlimited time and money. There is a kind of religion in science… This religious faith of the scientist is violated by the discovery that the world had a beginning… Science has proven that the universe exploded into being at a certain moment. It asks, what cause produced this effect? Who or what put matter and energy into the universe? Was the Universe created out of nothing or was it gathered together out of pre-existing materials? And science cannot answer these questions…The scientist’s pursuit of the past ends in the moment of creation. This is an exceedingly strange development, unexpected by all but the theologians. They have always accepted the word of the Bible: ‘In the beginning God created heaven and earth (pp. 101-105).’” A profound admission indeed!

Is there scientific proof of the theory of evolution? Let’s read some rather astonishing quotes from leading scientists making such a claim. Notice the arrogance and pride associated with these statements. Sir Julian Huxley wrote in “Evolution after Darwin”, 1960, Vol. 3, p. 41, “The first point to make about Darwin’s theory is that it is no longer a theory, but a fact. No serious scientist would deny the fact that evolution has occurred, just as he would not deny the fact that the earth goes around the sun.” Richard Goldschmidt is quoted in “American Scientist,” 1952, Vol. 40, p. 84, “Evolution of the animal and plant world is considered by all those entitled to judgment to be a fact for which no further proof is needed.” Richard Swann Lull in “Organic Evolution,” 1948, p. 15 says, “Since Darwin’s day, evolution has been more and more generally accepted, until now in the minds of informed thinking men there is no doubt that it is the only logical way whereby the creation can be interpreted and understood.”

Some Scientists Register Skepticism

Although many scientists, as well as most scientific and pseudo-scientific publications like to claim that evolution is a fact for which no further proof is needed, this does not mean that it is, in fact, a fact. Increasing numbers of scientists have uttered skepticism. Horatio Newman wrote in “Evolution, Genetics, and Eugenics,” 1932, 3rd ed., p. 57, “Reluctant as he may be to admit it, honesty compels the evolutionist to admit that there is no absolute proof of organic evolution.” Professor Ernst Mayr of Harvard wrote in 1963 in “Animals Species and Evolution,” on pp. 7 and 8, “The fact that the synthetic [evolutionary] theory is now so universally accepted is not in itself proof of its correctness…the basic theory is in many instances hardly more than a postulate.” Professor of Physiology and Biochemistry, G.A. Kerkut, wrote in 1960 in “Implications of Evolution,” on p. 157, “The evidence that supports it [evolution] is not sufficiently strong to allow us to consider it as anything more than a working hypothesis.”

In a German biology book written for high schools, an insightful statement is made on pages 309 and 310 (Schmeil, Allgemeine Biologie, 10th ed., 1965): “It is doubtful whether experiences which have been made at the outer fringes of evolution can be automatically applied to the entire concept…It is also totally unimaginable that designed organs such as the eye, the nervous system, the wonderful harmony of an organism, or the surprisingly purposeful actions of instinct, just came into existence through accidents.”

It is interesting to note that even Darwin himself saw the insurmountable difficulties with his theory when considering, for example, the eye. Writing in his “On the Origin of Species” he says, “To suppose that the eye…could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.” One of the leading modern evolutionists, Harvard Professor George G. Simpson, concurs, “The origin of such an organ as an eye, for example, entirely at random seems almost infinitely improbable” (“This View of Life,” 1964, p. 18) .

“Time Magazine” reported in 1981 that former U.S. President Ronald Reagan remarked that evolution was only a scientific theory, which was no longer considered infallible as was once thought to be the case. He added that if schools wanted to continue teaching evolution, they should also teach creation at the same time.

In 1980, the late well-known scientist at the Max-Plank Institute, Professor Joachim Illis, wrote an article in a German magazine, the “P.M.” In it he made some astonishing admissions regarding the alleged evolution of man, saying, “No serious scientist dares to state today that we know anything certain about the evolution of man.”

In 1996 “P.M.” published a special edition entitled, “The Wonder of Evolution.” It quotes Professor Josef Reichhold on page 37, “Remember the Neanderthal man? Originally, he was portrayed as a distorted, mean-looking individual. Today, we have uncovered more fossils, and the entire viewpoint has changed… When one day someone finds the remains of a tall Massai and of a little Pygmy, then perhaps some scientists will declare that they belonged to different species…We must remember that all designations are nothing else but hypotheses. The fossils that we find do not carry name tags.” This then, is the MAIN problem with the idea of evolution. Science uncovers fossils and designates them in accordance with already believed concepts. But if those concepts are inaccurate to begin with, the subsequent conclusions are also inaccurate.

Martin Tzschschel wrote in “P.M.,” “The picture of evolution consists of many little pieces and many big holes. A scientist found a good analogy when discussing the attempt to explain evolution based on fossils. That would be like trying to reconstruct Tolstoi’s six volumes of War and Peace out of only six unrelated single pages…This reconstruction does not sound very convincing in light of the many many holes. In addition…fossils had to be classified in such a way as to fit into the picture. When new fossils were found, the old picture became very often shaky.”

“Missing Links”are Still Missing

As “P.M.” pointed out in its article, “In Search of a New Darwin,” science has never found fossils that would prove the existence of ANY evolution from one species into another species—say from a fish to a reptile. But without such a transition, the whole evolution theory has no merits.

On pages 61 and 62 of the article, we read, “Never within the last 125 years, has there been found a missing link between reptile and bird, between crocodile and eagle, between turtle and dove. Whatever one unearthed—they were either distinctively the bones of a reptile or the bones of a bird. With staged despair, the German scientist Otto Schindewolf remarked in 1950, ‘The original bird Archaeopteryx has jumped out of a reptile egg.’ In other words, there is no proof that nature bridged the gap between reptile and bird in many small steps, as Darwin’s teachings demand. To the contrary, all fossils show that there were in existence reptiles with scaly skin, and then, suddenly, there was the Archaeopteryx with fully developed feathers. And what was in between? In between, there was nothing… Darwin believed that, contrary to cattle breeding, changes or mutations between the species were possible. He thought that in principle, the bounds and limits, which the cattle breeder is subject to, could have been crossed over by nature.

“But…we modern men cannot rely on this anymore, because otherwise, missing links between two species should have been found. The problem with missing links is oftentimes mentioned in the context of the evolution from apes or monkeys to man. But the U.S. biologist George Simpson complains, ‘Missing links are almost a universal phenomenon.’ And his colleague Rattrey Tayler explains more specifically, ‘The evolution of approximately 26 groups of mammals is totally unclear. So are the origins of insects. The ancestors of the fish are likewise unknown. The first fish eggs which were found were already totally developed, and the original insects captured in amber do not look much different than today’s specimen.’”

Darwin himself, the founder of the modern evolution theory, was not unaware of the difficulties just described. He thought, though, that, given enough time, missing links or, as he put it, “transitional forms,” would be found. Well, have they? Have recent news of so-called scientific discoveries in China, linking birds and dinosaurs, changed the picture? A popular television broadcast ran a program on this finding, trying to show how birds evolved from dinosaurs. They showed a dinosaur running and running, while magically losing its long tail and replacing it with wings. Then the dinosaur jumped and jumped until he took off from the ground like an airplane. The absurdity of this kind of thinking is laughable. Not all birds fly. The ostrich, for example, does not fly. What happened? Did the ostrich evolve back from a flying bird to a non-flying one? And so it goes with evolutionary reasoning.

There are scientists who found, or think they found, a skeleton that, as one magazine put it, “could prove to be the smallest known fossil of a dinosaur.” But was it? Here’s what a June 2000 article in “Der Spiegel,” a very popular and widely respected weekly German magazine, has to say. It quotes an article from “Science” magazine as stating, “The oldest animal with feathers was not a dinosaur.” The article points out that animals with feathers existed prior to dinosaurs, and it concluded, “This fossil rules out the widely-held view that birds evolved from dinosaurs.” So you see, science itself is divided on these subjects and so-called proofs.

If there is such disunity among scientists as to the proof of their theories, then why has science trusted in Darwin’s teaching for decades? A good question, and the answer is shocking. “P.M.” magazine explains it well in its article, “In Search of a New Darwin,” “To explain, one must remember the ideology of the whole matter. Even today, scientists, if they want to depart from Darwin’s teaching of evolution, must be afraid to receive applause from the wrong side—from the side of Bible-believing individuals, who, even 125 years after Darwin, still claim the accuracy of the Biblical story of creation.”

And so science continues to teach Darwinism and evolution, knowing full well that those concepts are wrong. The “P.M.” article goes on to say, “Two years ago, [Professor] Illis showed that there is no known example of big mutations [developments from one species into another species]. But Illis also pointed out that we must not go back to the Bible. The animals were not created in six days, but in billions of years. And life does not exist on earth for only 6000 years, although that is what the Anglican Archbishop James Usher had figured out in 1860 and disputed with Darwin.”

No Proof for the Basic Tenets of Evolution

Other scientists concur regarding the total lack of proof of “big mutations.”

In 1903 Professor Thomas Hunt Morgan wrote in “Evolution and Adaptation,” “Within the period of human history we do not know of a single instance of the transmutation of one species into another one…therefore it may be claimed that the theory of descent is lacking in the most essential feature it needs to place the theory on a scientific basis. This must be admitted” (p. 43).

Professor Dobzhansky stated in 1941 in “Genetics and the Origin of the Species,” p. 80, “Systematic mutations [big mutations transforming one species into another] have never been observed, and it is extremely improbable that species are formed in so abrupt a manner.” Professor George Simpson wrote in 1961 in “Science Today,” on p. 36, “Obviously, such a process [of multiple mutations] has played no part whatever in evolution.” And Dr. Maurice Caullery wrote in 1964 in “Genetics and Heredity,” on p. 119, “It does not seem, therefore, that the central problem of evolution can be solved by mutations.”

Now these are astonishing admissions by scientists of basic flaws in their beloved theory. So it may not be so surprising then, that they become very aggressive toward those who dare to question their validity, calling them “ignorant,” “unlearned,” “incompetent,” etc. As an old saying goes, “A good offense is the best defense.” But we know, of course, that attacking the truth does not make the error correct.

Since scientists admit that mutations can’t fill the holes in evolution, what can? Some say, “natural selection” or “survival of the fittest” gives the answer. Sir Julian Huxley claimed in 1953 that natural selection is the ONLY explanation of evolution. However, many scientists readily admit that this theory can NEVER explain evolution. George Simpson wrote in 1953 in “The Major Features of Evolution,” on pp. 118 and 119, “The theory [of natural selection] is quite unsubstantiated and has status only as a speculation.”

Gertrude Himmelfarb wrote in 1962 in “Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution,” on p. 445, “A growing number of scientists…have come to question the truth and adequacy of natural selection.” Why is that so? Because selection, whether natural or man-made, can create nothing new. It only makes more of a specific type already in existence. In other words, natural selection may explain the survival of the fittest, but it can never explain the arrival of the fittest. That’s why Professor E. W. Bride wrote in “Nature”: “‘Natural Selection’ affords no explanation…of any…form of evolution. It means nothing more than ‘the survivors survive.’ Why do certain individuals survive? Because they are the fittest. How do we know they are the fittest? Because they survive.”

Faced with these kinds of unanswerable problems, some have proposed that evolution occurred through many small mutations that were passed on to the next generations, until the many small mutations had become big. This concept was originally taught by Jean Baptiste Lamarck and has become known as “Lamarckism.” However, science has since proven this concept to be wrong, acknowledging that characteristics acquired by an individual during his life may affect his body, but cannot bring about a corresponding change in his hereditary nature as carried by his reproductive cells. For example, if you lose a finger, your children will still be born with ten fingers.

Some scientists claim that “the fossil record is the strongest evidence of evolution” (Thomas Hunt Morgan, A Critique of the Theory of Evolution, 1916, p. 24) or even that it is “the only evidence available” (W.R. Thompson, Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation, Vol. 12, March 1960, p. 6). But what about this evidence?

Professor West in “Compass,” May 1968, p. 216, writes, “Contrary to what most scientists write, the fossil record does not support the Darwinian theory of evolution because it is this theory…which we use to interpret the fossil record. By doing so we are guilty of circular reasoning if we say then the fossil record supports this theory.” What the author is saying is that scientists find fossils and classify them as belonging to a certain geological age. How and why? Because they “know” that evolution took place. Therefore, the age of the rock is determined by the fossil. If it’s a supposedly ancient fossil, the rocks are determined to be old – if it’s a supposedly more recent fossil, the age of the rock is determined to be more recent as well. Can we see how deceptive this method is?

Quoting from Professor Henry Shaler Williams in “Geological Biology”, 1895, p. 38, “The character of the rocks themselves, their composition, or their mineral contents have nothing to do with settling the question as to their particular system to which the new rocks belong. The fossils alone are the means of correlation.” But you may wonder if in more recent years this reasoning has changed. No, it hasn’t.

R. H. Rastall of CambridgeUniversity also observed the circular reasoning of science. Quoting him from the 1956 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, he said, “It cannot be denied that from a strictly philosophical standpoint geologists are here arguing in a circle. The succession of organisms has been determined by a study of their remains buried in the rocks, and the relative ages of the rocks are determined by the remains of organism that they contain.” We will later explain in detail the real story behind the fossil record. Fossils were formed in a sudden way, not by gradual changes. They do not support the evolution theoory at all, but they do support several catastrophic events on this planet.

So what have we learned so far? We have learned that scientists are unable to provide any proof that evolution did happen, and that any so-called proofs amount to no more than circular reasoning. Yet, science continues to teach evolution as fact, and people continue to believe it. WHY? It is because the alternative—the Biblical teaching of creation—is unacceptable to science. Such a statement may seem absurd, but is well supported by the scientists themselves. Consider carefully these additional quotes from scientists telling us to have faith in evolution, not in the Bible.

Dr. Louis T. More wrote in 1925 in “The Dogma of Evolution,” “The more one studies paleontology, the more certain one becomes that evolution is based on faith alone, exactly the same sort of faith which is necessary to have when one encounters the great mysteries of religion.”

Charles Singer wrote in 1946 in “A Short History of Science,” on p. 387, “Evolution is perhaps unique among major scientific theories in that the appeal for its acceptance is not that there is evidence for it, but that any other proposed interpretation is wholly incredible.”

Arthur Keith, an evolutionary scientist, admitted, “Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation which is unthinkable.” (B.G. Ranganathan “Origins?” 1988, p. 22)

Finally, a quote from scientist D.M.S. Watson, essentially denying Divine creation, “Evolution itself is accepted by zoologists, not because it has been observed to occur or can be proven by logical coherent evidence, but because the only alternative—special creation—is clearly incredible.” (B.G. Ranganathan “Origins,” p. 22).

Attorney Philip Johnson wrote a book, entitled, “Darwin on Trial.” In it, he states on pages 59 and 56, “We paleontologists have said that the history of life supports [the story of gradual adaptive change], all the while really knowing that it does not…[The] sudden appearance and statis [lack of change] of species in the fossil record is the opposite of what the Darwinian theory would predict.”

British Scientist Chandra Wickramasinghe summarized the problem this way, “The general scientific world has been bamboozled into believing that evolution has been proved. Nothing could be further from the truth… There is no evidence for any of the basic tenets of Darwinian evolution. I don’t believe there ever was any evidence for it. It was a social force that took over the world in 1860, and I think it has been a disaster for science ever since.” Did you get that? It was a social force, not scientific fact. People chose to believe a lie, and indeed, today they still cling to it. Louis Bounoure, a biologist and zoologist from France, put it this way: “Evolution is just a fairy tale for grownups.”

Evolution-a Fairy Tale For Grownups?

Some time ago, a program was shown on television entitled, “The Mysterious Origin of Man.” It was hosted by actor Charlton Heston, known from such movies as “The Ten Commandments” and “Ben Hur.” Mr. Heston stated the following in the program, “Sometimes artifacts are found that break all the rules [of evolutionary time tables]… What happens when we find a modern human skull in rock strata far beneath the oldest of man’s ancestors?”

To answer this question, the program interviewed Dr. Richard Thompson and Michael Gremo, co-authors of the book, “Forbidden Archaeology,” in which they listed literally hundreds of so-called unexplainable artifacts. Michael Gremo stated that “we are talking about a massive cover-up.” Dr. Thompson elaborated, “What we find is a knowledge filter. People filter out things which don’t fit, which don’t make sense in terms of their paradigm. In science you find that evidence that does not fit the accepted paradigm tends to be eliminated. It’s not taught, it’s not discussed.”

Another person who was interviewed in the program was British author Richard Milton, who wrote a book entitled, “Shattering the Myths of Darwinism.” He stressed what we already know—“So far,” he said, “the missing link is still missing.” When asked why he criticized Darwinism without offering an alternative, he responded, “It seems to me that if Darwinism is wrong, somebody has got to point the finger.”

The program also discussed the so-called Java man, which, until 1984, was considered to be a link between man and ape. It was pointed out that today it is a scientific fact that the Java man was not a man at all, but rather an extinct ape. Another fossil, called Lucy, was claimed to be a link between ape and man. Michael Gremo explained, “I was at a conference of paleontologists where many of them were making the case that she was hardly distinguishable from an ape or a monkey.” Richard Milton concurred, “This is merely an interpretation—an interpretation of one group. These same bones can be, and they have been, taken by scientists to identify simply an extinct ape—they have nothing to do with us at all.”

In light of those admissions and findings, Mr. Heston made the following remarks: “So far no missing links have been found at all. So what happens to the evolutionary model if the missing link does not exist at all? The model simply collapses.” This indictment against the scientific method is repeated in a book entitled, “Apes, Man and Morons,” written by evolutionary anthropologist Ernest Albert Hooton in 1970. He states on p. 107, “Heretical and non-conforming fossil men were banished to the limbo of dark museum cupboards, forgotten or even destroyed.”

Here’s a quote from another article published in the “P.M.” magazine by Professor Joachim Illis, entitled, “What Do We Know About The Evolution Of Man?” It contains eye-opening admissions as to how science has invented, and keeps in operation, the fairy tale of evolution. Professor Illis writes, “Missing facts and gaps in the building of the theory are supplemented with theoretical missing links…, and in this way, the magician of biology presented a completed trunk of life-forms, which arises from the organic soup…to its proud height, containing as branches all present and extinct animals and plants. Mere chance of correct mutations, as well as the concept of the survival of the fittest, according to Darwinism, were alone responsible for this trunk and its branches, which evolved all by themselves. Man has a similar fate as the ape, because he, too, is…the product of a material process without any purpose and design; he is the highest coincidental or accidental assembly of energy and matter, a product of chance.

“Darwinists think today as Haeckel did 100 years ago, but in the meantime, one should have learned that chance is not even a scientific explanation. Most biologists do not live comfortably any more in the shaky building of Darwinism. That is so, as we have never found any big mutations (that is, changes that would show that one species could develop into another species)…and we have never found any fossils that could qualify as a link between the species. Those missing links are absolutely necessary, as they alone can fasten the branches to the trunk and the tree, and they must therefore have existed.

“Pitecanthropos and the Neanderthal man are upon closer examination not apes at all, but real members of the species man. The famous original bird, Archaeopterix, which was listed as a link between reptile and bird, has now been declared as a real reptile which caught, while running, butterflies with its feathered forelegs.”

Is “Theistic Evolution” the Answer?

A famous German TV moderator, Dr. Franz Alt, wrote a book several years ago entitled, “Love is Possible.” He pointed out, “We were at no time in our development mouse, ape or tadpole. We were, from the beginning, humans. Man did not evolve from animals. More and more scientists consider that the belief in a Creator is much less speculative than the belief in a big bang or an organic soup, out of which everything supposedly developed. The theory of accidental creation reminds me of a printer who threw all his letters out of the window, hoping to find later on the street, just by chance, Goethe’s Faust… The theory of chance is the mentally poorest of all explanations for the existence of the world. The atheism of modern materialism…do[es] not give us any answers to the…question as to what is the purpose of life.”

These are intriguing words. Can evolution tell us WHY we exist? Of course not! And neither does it even attempt to do so. In the P.M. magazine, “The Wonder of Evolution,” we are told, “At the beginning, chance reigned….There is no plan for creation…Man, too, has evolved. He is not a crown of creation designed by God, but as all mammals, the latest product of a mollusk… Spirit, morals and even the belief in God are only, according to Darwin, a product of the brain structure.” IF that were true, then life would indeed be hopeless. Then we might as well live for today, because tomorrow we are dead and gone.

Yes, the Theory of Evolution lacks answers to these and many other questions. For instance, evolution cannot explain the enormous difference in intelligence and intellect between man and all other animals. Professor Illis discussed this dilemma in another article entitled, “Can Apes Still Become Humans?” He wrote, “Not one scientist has been able to explain WHY the ape developed into man…. We cannot even postulate convincingly that man developed out of the ape…and not that the ape developed out of man…These are strange things that show us that man’s development is a mysterious matter that science does not understand…Today it is clear that evolution cannot be explained by science…Man is separated from animals (including the highest animals, the apes) through unbridgeable mental gaps…This strange being, man, does only exist once…All these characteristics which make us unique were acquired accidentally…Apes cannot develop into man, unless an unexplainable miracle occurs.”

The P.M. magazine, “The Wonder of Evolution,” confirms that man’s intelligence cannot be explained scientifically. They point out on page 60, “What is…the unique criterion of man’s brain? Is it constructed differently…? ‘No,’ explains Gerhardt Roth, Director of Brain Research at the University of Bremen. ‘The brain of the whale is even more complex than ours…’ Does man then have unique, higher developed nerve cells? Roth answers again in the negative. ‘Under the microscope, you cannot distinguish man’s brain cells from those of an ape.’”

Though the brain material of humans and animals are not distinguishable, one cannot deny differences in the way the brains function. An astonishing scientific article in the German biological encyclopedia entitled “Brehm’s Tierleben,” explains it thus, “The question whether animals are intelligent is mostly answered by lay persons in the affirmative…Oftentimes, actions by animals appear to be intelligent…Those mechanical actions which are not understood by the animals are called instinct. It should be clear, however, that this is just a designation and not an explanation of this totally unexplained phenomenon. Instinct has been one of the most mysterious and strangest secrets of nature…Only man lives in an environment in which intelligence, consideration and accountability is demanded—the animals know none of it.” These scientific comments should prompt us to wonder WHY do those differences exist? If man is only the highest developed animal, why does he KNOW what the animals do NOT know?

At this point, religion tries to intervene and explain the unexplainable in a spiritual way. The notion that evolution has taken place is widely accepted. But it is “spiritualized.” That is, supposedly God directed the process of evolution and He intervened at certain stages, under certain circumstances, sort of “helping it along.” It is believed that man evolved from apes, but that along the way, God gave the evolving creature, man, certain mental and spiritual abilities, thereby separating him from the animals. But this theological attempt to teach the concept of a theistic evolution overlooks the most important problem. First, as we have seen, evolution is not scientifically proven, a fact that is admitted by some leading scientists. Second, the concept of a theistic evolution is simply irresponsible and actually damaging, as it rejects the clear teachings of the Bible without having any reason to do so, as we will see shortly. And we will also discover that the fossil record, for example, does not contradict the biblical teachings in any way.

Those who have analyzed the issue of a theistic evolution, admit that it clearly contradicts the teachings of the Bible. The article in “Brehm’s Tierleben” points out, “The ancient idea, which had been mainly taught by Christianity, postulated that man was the crown of creation, a unique being, and that his soul, his intelligence and his language constituted a unsurpassable partition wall between him and the animals. But with the fundamental teachings of Darwin, this partition had to begin to shake.”

The P.M. magazine, “The Wonder of Evolution,” concurs, “For many centuries, man considered himself as the crown of creation. It was accepted what was written in the Bible, ‘And God said, Let us make man, an image equal to us, to rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air.’ Then Charles Darwin appeared… His teaching is universally known and has deeply affected and shaken the Christian faith…His expedition [with the ship Beagle] changes the theologian [Darwin. Note that Charles Darwin was originally a theologian]. He begins to doubt the Biblical story of creation…”

The Proof of Creation

While scientists tell us the beginning of the universe began with a “big bang,” the Bible tells us something altogether different. God says in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” The word “heavens” is plural, referring to the entire universe. In Isaiah 45:11-13, God says, “Thus says the Lord, the holy One of Israel, and His Maker:… I have made the earth, and created man on it. I—My hands—stretched out the heavens, and all their host [the stars, planets, etc.] I have commanded.”

The New Testament confirms these claims in Hebrews 11:3, “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.” Hebrews 1:10 tells us, “You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.” Again, we are told that it was God who brought into existence everything there is. Revelation 4:11 states, “You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created.”

You might wonder whether the Bible allows for creation through evolution. The answer is clearly “NO.” We just read how in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth—the entire universe—out of things that are not material, things that cannot be seen. In other words, God did not create the universe out of a nucleus of energy or matter, which then exploded. We also read that God created the earth and the universe at the same time. However, man was not created at that time, as we will explain shortly. Nothing is said, though, how long ago this happened. The creation of the earth and the universe could have been millions or billions of years ago. The Bible also indicates that the creation did not gradually evolve over time.

Note God’s purpose for His creation in Isaiah 45:18, “For thus says the Lord who created the heavens, who is God, who formed the earth and made it, who has established it, who did not create it in vain, who formed it to be inhabited.” The Hebrew word for “in vain” is “tohu,” which means “empty” or “in a state of waste.” When God created the earth, it was not created in a state of being empty or waste. Rather, we read in the book of Job, that the angels were delighted when they saw the beauty of the earth, as God had created it. Job 38:4-7, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth… when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” The angels would not have shouted for joy if the earth had been an empty, wasted, uninhabitable planet, which had to wait millions of years for physical life to evolve. No, the earth was created in a beautiful condition, capable, at the time of its creation, of supporting life.

The Earth Became Void and Empty

With this in mind, let’s read Genesis 1:2, “The earth was without form [Hebrew “tohu”], and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep.” A more correct translation would be, “The earth became void and without form.” Some translations, like the Companion Bible and The New International Version, have made notations to this effect.

We saw that Isaiah 45:18 tells us that God did not create the earth in vain, or “tohu.” The Hebrew word for “in vain” in Isaiah 45:18, “tohu,” is the same word used in Genesis 1:2, and rendered there, “without form.” So we read in Isaiah that God did not create the earth “void” and “empty,” but we also read in Genesis 1:2 that the earth was “void” and “empty.” Since the Bible does not contradict itself, the only explanation is that the earth, which had NOT been created “void”, subsequently BECAME “void.”

The reason why some translate Genesis 1:2 as, “The earth WAS void and empty,” rather than, “The earth BECAME void and empty,” is based on the fact that the Hebrew word, translated “was” or “became,” can indeed mean both, based on the context. The word in Hebrew is “haya.” It is up to the translator to decide whether to use “was” or “became,” and unless the translator understands what transpired here, based on what the Bible says elsewhere, the resulting translation
is going to be misleading.

Let’s look at some examples that show that the Hebrew word “haya” can mean “became.” As a matter of fact, in the following passages, the word “haya” can ONLY mean “became,” and NOT “was.” Genesis 2:7 says, “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man BECAME [haya] a living being.” Let’s also read Genesis 19:26, “But Lot’s wife looked back behind him, and she BECAME [haya] a pillar of salt.” Another interesting passage is found in Deuteronomy 27:9, “Then Moses and the priests, the Levites, spoke to all Israel, saying, ‘This day you have BECOME [haya] the people of the Lord your God.’” Finally, 2 Samuel 7:24: “For You have made Your people Israel Your very own people forever, and You, Lord, have BECOME [haya] their God.”

Many theologians and scientists have correctly postulated that the state of emptiness, described in Genesis 1:2, occurred long after the state described in Genesis 1:1, when God created the earth. For instance, Joseph Free, Ph.D., Professor of archaeology and history, published a book in 1950, entitled, “Archaeology and Bible History.” He writes on pages 19 and 20, “The date of the creation of the universe is an entirely different question from the date of the creation of man. The universe may have been created shortly before the creation of man…or long before, depending on whether or not a long period of time is involved in the first two verses of Genesis. [T]he original creation of the universe and the earth is described in Genesis 1:1, ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.’ Then a period of time followed during which ‘the earth was without form and void.’ … This period of time may have been of any length, and could include the geological ages observable in the earth’s surface…After this cataclysmic period, the putting of the world in order is described in Genesis 1: 2b, 3 ff…

“In the nineteenth century George H. Pumber in his book, ‘Earth’s Earliest Ages,’ popularized this view that there may have been a long period or gap in Genesis 1:1, 2, and it is sometimes charged that the whole idea is due merely to his book. The possibility of a gap or a long period of time in Genesis 1:1, 2, has, however, been held by many competent theologians, including Hengstenberg (1802-1869), a German Lutheran scholar who became Professor of Theology at the University of Berlin in 1828, Franz Delitzsch (1813-1890), Professor at Erlangen in Germany and an outstanding Old Testament scholar, and others such as Boehme, Oetinger, F. von Meyer, Stier, Keerl, and Kurtz.”

On page 21, Professor Free discusses an interesting potential parallel scripture in the book of Jeremiah. He writes: “In warning Israel of God’s judgment on backsliding, the prophet Jeremiah presented his vision of the earth as being ‘without form and void.’ (Jeremiah 4: 23), using the same Hebrew words as those applied to the earth in Genesis 1:2. [Jeremiah 4: 23 reads, “I beheld the earth, and indeed it was without form and void, and the heavens had no light.”] Jeremiah was apparently led to think back to the desolation of the earth before the creation of man and compare it with the cataclysmic state which would result if God’s judgment should fall on unrepentant Israel. This use of the very same words could point to a cataclysmic period in Genesis 1:2…”

We will later address what caused this cataclysmic period, and why the earth, after it had been created beautifully, BECAME a wasteland. But before the earth became empty, animals already lived on the earth. Man, though, did not exist. His creation is described in Genesis 1:26, after God had made the earth habitable again, and after He had created the animals which live, for the most part, still today. An interesting passage describing the re-creation or the renewal of the surface of the earth can be found in Psalms 104:30, “You send forth Your Spirit, they are created; and You RENEW the FACE of the earth.”

Man Created in God’s Image

Neither animals nor man have evolved, according to the Bible. On the contrary, we read that God created animals “according to their kind”—but insofar as man is concerned, God created man in God’s own image, according to God’s likeness—in other words, according to the God kind. (Genesis 1:26 and 27)

Animals were not created in such a way that they could develop from one kind or from one species into another kind or species. The Bible does not allow for big mutations, that is, for changes from one species into another species, or perhaps more accurately, from one kind into another kind. We are using here the word “species” loosely, but we should realize that the Bible talks about “kind,” not “species.” The Biblical definition of “kind” might include several species, the way some scientists identify “species.” This is important to remember, as no one seems to know what a species is. The Encyclopedia Britannica pointed out in its 1967 edition that scientists often cannot agree as to what a species is. For instance, the Bible calls the “owl” a “kind,” (Leviticus 11:16), but scientists would call an owl an entire “order,” not just a “species.”

The point here is that evolution requires changes and transformations from one species or kind into another species or kind, but all our past and present experiences show that those mutations or changes did not, and do not occur. And remember, NO fossils have been found to prove that any such changes occurred in the past. A bird brings forth birds. As a matter of fact, an eagle does not bring forth a pigeon. A bird does not produce anything else but birds, it does not produce a fish or a mammal. And no fish evolves or changes into a bird, and no reptile into a fish. Rather, all animals reproduce according to their kind. No scientist is able to have a horse produce a dog, or a shark or a crocodile.

Darwin’s big mistake was to assume that, since little mutations or adaptations within a species do occur, big mutations or changes from one species into another must have occurred as well. This, of course, was a wrong assumption. On the other hand, it is true that animals within their own species can change or adapt to their environment. Darwin saw on the Galapagos Islands that certain birds had, within their species, brought forth minor changes. And so it is today. Of course, we can breed different species of dogs or cats—but they will always remain dogs or cats. Within the species of cats, one can cross-breed. But one cannot breed a dog with a cat. Likewise, the birds, which Darwin observed on the Galapagos Islands, did not develop into other birds, and most certainly not into mammals.

We learn from the Bible that man is NOT the highest species within the animal world. Man did not originate from animals, rather, man was created directly by God, and in the image of God Himself. Before God created Eve, He asked Adam whether he could find a help mate from the animals, but he could not. So God created Eve from Adam, and Adam could later say, “This is bone from my bone, and flesh from my flesh,” as Eve was made from man, not from any animal. According to the Bible, man is a being who stands high above the animal world, destined and charged to rule over all the animals. Man’s origins are from God, not from an organic soup and subsequent evolution.

What about the theistic version of the theory of evolution? As Louis Agassiz, Professor of Zoology, said, “The resources of the Deity cannot be so meager, that in order to create a human being endowed with reason, He must change a monkey into a man.” (Methods of Study in Natural History, 1863, p. iv).

Darwin’s concepts have brought much misery upon this earth. It is no secret that Adolph Hitler accepted Darwin’s teaching of evolution and the survival of the fittest, and he believed that he was entitled to eliminate, what he deemed to be, substandard races. As the P.M. magazine, “The Wonder of Evolution,” reports, Darwin’s teaching also had a very bad effect on Darwin himself. His wife could see “how his research alienated him from religion… When the scientist begins to think about the consequences of his findings [which were, in fact, only theoretical ideas without any scientific proof or evidence], he is struck with migraine and depression. No doctor can explain his condition… his sufferings begin to become chronic. He can only work four hours a day…” Darwin was originally a theologian, believing in the inspiration of the Bible. But he leaned on his own human reasoning, rejecting God’s word, which led to devastating consequences in his own life, and in the lives of many, many others.

The Barrier Between the Mind of Man and Animals

Let’s return to an important issue that we briefly touched on before – the remarkable differences between man and animal. We saw that they cannot be explained scientifically. But one cannot deny that they exist.

The German biological encyclopedia “Brehm’s Tierleben” discusses the unsurpassable partition wall between man and animals. One article deals with an experiment to “show how the mental aspects of development in men and monkeys begin to differ dramatically, although they seemed to be identical in the earliest years.” The article says, “Professor Kellog, psychologist at the IndianaUniversity, raised his ten-month old son together with a chimpanzee of the same age under the exactly identical conditions. The chimpanzee understood the meaning of certain words much earlier than his son Donald did, although sometimes, it was the opposite. After ten months the chimpanzee topped Donald clearly in regard to memory, thinking and understanding; he understood much quicker and more reliably the connections of events surrounding them; his intelligence was extraordinary and was able to motivate him to action which went beyond what the little Donald was able to do… But once they reached the age of 1½ years, a remarkable change occurred within the development of these two little children [sic]. In a brief period of time, Donald became much smarter than the chimpanzee. He understood what was happening around him much easier, and began to think and to act on his own and in new ways. Nothing could be noticed insofar with regard to the chimpanzee. He had reached within 10 months the pinnacle of his ability to learn and absorb. His intelligence could not be increased or perfected any more.”

Yes, there is a barrier that separates the mind of man from the animals. Just what is this barrier? We know it has nothing to do with the physical attributes in the brains. The brains themselves do not differ enough to explain the differences in mental capacities and intelligence between them. If we adopt the theory of Darwinism, teaching that everything evolved by coincidence, this barrier should not exist. Although science acknowledges the existence of this barrier, they are unable to explain what it is, because it cannot be explained in physical terms. Rather, as we will see, it is something non-physical, something that cannot be tested in tubes or with physical instruments.

Now, some scientists do concede that the human brain must have a non-physical component. Dr. Wilder Penfield, a famous neurosurgeon, is remembered for his surgical treatment of epileptic patients. His patients remained conscious during their surgery and were thus able to report what they were experiencing when part of their brains were stimulated with a mild electrical current. Dr. Penfield wrote a book about his research entitled, “Mystery of the Mind.” It was published shortly before his death in 1967. In this book he wrote, “Throughout my own scientific career, I, like other scientists, have struggled to prove that the brain accounts for the mind.” But after many experiments, he stated: “To me, it seems more and more reasonable that the mind may be a distinct and different essence [from the brain]…Here is the meeting of mind and brain. It is not to be accounted for by any neuronal mechanisms that I can discover… Since every man must adopt for himself, without the help of science, his way of life and his personal religion, I have long held my own private beliefs. What a thrill it is, then, to discover, that the scientist, too, can legitimately believe in the existence of…spirit.”

What led Dr. Penfield to realize that the human mind must have, in addition to the physical brain, something non-physical, which he called “spirit”? Several years ago, Professor Robert Augrus explained Dr. Penfield’s research and findings. Dr. Penfield operated on hundreds of epileptics to lessen or eliminate epileptic seizures without adversely affecting other brain functions. During the experiments, Dr. Penfield would put an electrode on the speech area, making the person temporarily unable to understand words or speak without the patient realizing this, as the brain has no sensitivity.

Professor Augrus pointed out that Dr. Penfield would show the patient a picture card and the patient could correctly identify the picture. When the electrode was applied to the brain, the patient could not speak, he could only snap his finger. When the electrode was removed, the patient said, “Butterfly. I could not get out the word butterfly. So then I tried to say the word, moth, but I could not get that either.” Professor Augros summarized this experiment as follows: “This demonstrates very well the difference between speech and thought. Speech and thought are not the same thing. Thought is directing speech, telling the brain, which is really like a fantastic computer, come up with the word for this. I know what this thing is; I’ve identified it. Now give me the word for that out of the archives of memory. And that was temporarily blocked. So then he said, give me the name for a similar thing—and that was blocked too. In his frustration, he snapped with the finger. There’s got to be something directing brain functions.”

The Spirit in Man

Whether coincidence or not, at the same time that Dr. Penfield conducted his research from a scientific view, a Christian author was evaluating the same issue from a Biblical perspective. He, too, could see that the human mind is fundamentally different from the animal brain, and he wondered whether the Bible explains the reason for the difference. This author was Herbert W. Armstrong, and he published his findings in a book entitled, “The Incredible Human Potential.” This is what he wrote on pages 74 and 75, “Animals are equipped with brain and instinct. But they do not have power to understand and choose moral and spiritual values or to develop perfect spiritual character. Animals have brain, but no intellect—instinct, but no ability to develop holy and Godly character. And that pictures the transcendental DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ANIMAL BRAIN AND HUMAN MIND. But what causes that vast difference? There is virtually no difference in shape and construction between animal brain and human brain. The brains of elephants, whales and dolphins are larger than human brain, and the chimp’s brain is slightly smaller.

“What then can account for the vast difference? Science cannot adequately answer. Some scientists, in the field of research, conclude that, of necessity, there has to be some non-physical component in human brain that does not exist in animal brain. But most scientists will not admit the possibility of the existence of the nonphysical. What other explanation is there? Actually, outside of the very slight degree of physical superiority of human brain, science has no explanation, due to unwillingness to concede even the possibility of the spiritual…”

Mr. Armstrong then explains that, according to the Bible, each human being has a non-physical component in his brain, called “the spirit in man.” On page 81 of his book, he points out, “[T]his spirit is not the man—only something in the man… This spirit cannot see, hear, or think. The man sees, hears and thinks through his physical brain and the five senses of seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling and feeling. The spirit in man imparts the power of physical intellect to the physical brain, thus forming human mind.

“This spirit acts, among other things, as a computer, adding to the brain the psychic and intellectual power. Knowledge received in the brain through the eye, ear and the senses is immediately ‘programmed’ into the spirit computer. This ‘computer’ gives the brain instant recall of whatever portion of millions of bits of knowledge may be needed in the reasoning process. That is to say that memory is recorded in the human spirit, whether or not it is also recorded in the ‘gray matter’ of the brain. This human spirit also adds to man a spiritual and moral faculty not possessed by animals.”

Most people know nothing about the existence of the spirit in man—even many religious people—lay persons and theologians alike. When they read passages in the Bible describing the spirit in man, they assume the Bible is talking about the soul. But the soul is not a non-physical component of the human being. The soul, according to the Bible, is totally physical. The Bible does not teach the concept of an immortal soul. Rather, we read in Ezekiel 18:4, “The soul who sins shall die.” The word “soul” in the Bible refers to the living body of both man and animals. In Revelation 16:3, we read that every living soul—both men and beasts—died in the sea. The soul does NOT distinguish man from animals. Rather, the spirit in man is THE distinguishing factor between man and animals. It explains man’s superiority over the animals and totally disproves the concept of evolution. In Romans 8:16, and in 1 Corinthians 2:11, more fully discussed below, it is expressly stated that there is a spirit in each man, which spirit is different from God’s Holy Spirit.

In the book of Isaiah we are told that each human being has a spirit within him. “Thus says God the Lord, Who created the heavens and stretched them out, Who spread forth the earth and that which comes from it, Who gives breath to the people on it, and spirit to those who walk on it.” (Isaiah 42:5).

We also learn that God sometimes influences man’s spirit for His purpose. We could say that God inspires or motivates a person by “stirring up” the spirit in that person. Note 1 Chronicles 5:25-26, “And they [Israel] were unfaithful to the God of their fathers, and played the harlot after the gods of the peoples of the land, whom God had destroyed before them. So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul, king of Assyria…He carried the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh into captivity.”

Another example is found in 2 Chronicles 21:16-17, “Moreover the Lord stirred up against Jehoram the spirit of the Philistines and the Arabians…And they came into Judah and invaded it, and carried away all the possessions that were found in the king’s house, and also his sons and his wives.”

Later, when God saw to it that His word and promise would be fulfilled to rebuild the destroyed city of Jerusalem and the temple, He inspired King Cyrus of Persia to issue a decree, permitting the Jews who were captured in Babylon, to return to Jerusalem. Both 2 Chronicles 36:22 and Ezra 1:1 record what exactly happened. “Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also put it in writing, saying, ‘Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: All the kingdoms of the earth the Lord God of heaven has given me. And He has commanded me to build Him a house at Jerusalem which is in Judah.’” Even King Cyrus realized that God had influenced his spirit to make this proclamation.

But the work of rebuilding the destroyed temple progressed very slowly. There was a lack of leadership to motivate the people to accomplish the task at hand. Let’s read how God intervened, in Haggai 1:4, “So the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel…, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua…and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and worked on the house of the Lord of hosts, their God.”

The Bible strongly indicates that God gives the human spirit at the time of conception, and then takes it back at the time of death. We read in Zechariah 12:1, “Thus says the Lord who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him.” Ecclesiastes 12:7 says, “Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.” When the spirit in man leaves a person, that person is dead. James 2:26 says, “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.”

Jesus Christ Himself, at the time of His death, cried out to the Father to receive His spirit. What exactly did He say? Let’s read in Luke 23:46, “And when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, He said, ‘Father, into Your hands I commit My Spirit.’ Having said this, He breathed His last.” When He died, His human spirit returned to God, as we read in Ecclesiastes. Hebrews 12:22-23 also confirms that the spirit of man returns to God in heaven when the person dies. “But you have come to…the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem[when we pray, we appear before God in heaven], to an innumerable company of angels,…to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect…”

In the book of Job, Elihu, under God’s inspiration, tells us, “If He [God] should set His heart on it, if He should gather to Himself His Spirit and His breath [since God gives both breath and spirit, they both belong to Him and are His. But the spirit being talked about here is the spirit in man, not the Holy Spirit, which is altogether different], all flesh would perish together, and man would return to dust” (Job 34:14 and 15).

When God decided to destroy man in the flood, He made this statement in Genesis 6:3, “And the Lord said, ‘My Spirit shall not strive [or abide] with [or in] Man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.’” What God is saying here is that He would destroy man through a flood within 120 years from then. This spirit abiding in man cannot be a reference to God’s Holy Spirit, as man was to be wiped out because of his own evil doings. We know, on the other hand, that God gives His Holy Spirit only to those who obey Him, as we read in Acts 5:32. So, the spirit referred to in Genesis 6:3 is a reference to the spirit of man, which is temporary. Isaiah 57:16 tells us, “For I will not contend forever, Nor will I always be angry; for the spirit [of man] would fail before Me, and the souls which I have made.”

Understand though, that when a man dies and his spirit returns to God, that spirit does not continue to live consciously, apart from the body. Rather, God “stores” it, so to speak, in heaven, until He unites it at the time of the resurrection of man with a new spiritual or physical body. The concept that man’s soul is immortal is as wrong as the concept that man’s spirit continues to live consciously after death. Rather, the body—or soul—dies, and the spirit of man returns to God to await a resurrection.

Note Ecclesiates 9:4-6, “But for him who is joined to all the living there is hope… For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing…Also their love, their hatred, and their envy have now perished… And verse 10, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going.” In other words, there is no conscious activity after a person dies. The spirit does not continue in the realm of consciousness.

Jesus Christ also made it clear that dead people do not continue to live on. Rather, the dead will have to be brought back to life through a resurrection from the dead. In Matthew 22:31-32, He asked the Sadducees, since they did not believe in the resurrection, “But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” If the dead persons of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had somehow continued to live consciously after their death, including a conscious existence of their spirit that had returned to God, then Christ’s words to the Sadducees would have been without sense.

Why Does Man HAVE A Spirit?

WHY does God give each human being a spirit? The spirit in man records all the human characteristics of the person, as well as his or her outward appearance. At the time of the resurrection, the spirit of the dead person is combined with a new body of the dead person. This means, all the experiences and memories and ideas of the former life are back in the resurrected individual, and the resurrected person will also look the same way he or she did in their former life.

The Bible teaches that there is a resurrection of people back to physical life, and also a resurrection to spiritual life. In the book of Ezekiel, a physical resurrection of the entire house of Israel is described. The prophet sees in a vision a valley with dry bones. Let’s read, this time in the New American Bible, what happens, beginning in Ezekiel 37:7, “I prophesied as I had been told; and even as I was prophesying I heard a noise; it was a rattling as the bones came together, bone joining bone. I saw the sinews and the flesh come upon them, and the skin cover them, but there was no spirit in them. Then He said to me, ‘Prophesy to the spirit, prophesy, son of man, and say to the spirit, “‘Thus says the Lord God, From the four winds come, o spirit, and breathe into these slain that they may come to life.’” I prophesied as He told me, and the spirit came into them; they came alive and stood upright, a vast army.”

When a person dies, his body returns to dust. But the spirit of man in him has recorded the appearance of the person, the personality, the personal attributes, and God gives the spirit of that person back into the newly created physical body. Let’s read Luke 8:49-55, “While He was still speaking, someone came from the ruler of the synagogue’s house, saying to him, Your daughter is dead. Do not trouble the Teacher. But when Jesus heard it, He answered him, saying, Do not be afraid, only believe, and she will be made well. When He came into the house, He permitted no one to go in except Peter, James and John, and the father and the mother of the girl. Now all wept and mourned for her; but He said, Do not weep; she is not dead, but sleeping. And they ridiculed Him, knowing that she was dead. But He put them all outside, took her by the hand and called, saying, Little girl, arise. Then her spirit returned, and she arose immediately.” Jesus compares the death of a person with a dreamless sleep, out of which the person can awake. Remember when Jesus said that Lazarus was sleeping. He was in fact dead, but Christ knew that He would wake him up out of that sleep or death.

Just as the Bible teaches a resurrection to physical life, so it also teaches a resurrection to spiritual life. Those who died after having been counted worthy to enter the Kingdom of God at the time of Christ’s second coming, will have part in a spiritual resurrection, as the Apostle Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-44, “But someone will say, ‘How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?’ Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies. And what you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be… But God gives… a body as He pleases… So also is the [spiritual] resurrection from the dead [to spiritual life]: The body is sown in corruption [flesh and blood], it is raised in incorruption…It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.” But as with a resurrection to physical life, the resurrection to spiritual life will also incorporate the spirit that was in man and that recorded the person’s characteristics.

The spirit in man imparts the mind and the intellect of man – a spirit that animals don’t have. Note what Job’s friend, Zophar, understood about this spirit in Job 20:2-3, “Therefore my anxious thoughts make me answer…The spirit of my understanding causes me to answer.” Elihu would later agree with this assessment. The New Jerusalem Bible translates Job 32:8, “There is, you see, a spirit residing in humanity, the breath of God conferring intelligence.” Let’s also read verse 18, going back to the New King James Bible, “For I am full of words; the spirit within me compels me.”

One of the writers of the Psalms, Asaph, also understood that it was the spirit within him that motivated him to think and gave him intelligence. He says in Psalm 77:6, “I call to remembrance my song in the night; I meditate within my heart, and my spirit makes diligent search.” King Solomon, who wrote the books of Proverbs, likewise confirmed that it is the spirit in man that grants human understanding and is responsible for self-awareness. He says in Proverbs 20:27, “The spirit of a man is the lamp of the Lord, searching all the inner depths of his heart.” The New Jerusalem Bible renders this verse, “The human spirit is the lamp of Yahweh—searching the deepest self.”

Turning now to the New Testament, we find an interesting statement regarding the spirit in man in Acts 17:16 and 17, “Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols. Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshippers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there.” Some who read passages like these erroneously conclude that those statements refer to God’s Holy Spirit. But this is not the case. The Bible distinguishes clearly between the spirit in man and the Holy Spirit. God gives to everyone the spirit of man, apparantly at the time of conception, while only those whom God specifically calls, He grants His Holy Spirit.

Paul says in Romans 8:14-16, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God [the Holy Spirit], these are the sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear [a reference here to Satan, the god and spirit of this world], but you received the Spirit of adoption [or better, sonship] by whom we cry out, Abba, Father. The Spirit [God’s Holy Spirit] Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”

Paul speaks very clearly about two spirits—the spirit of man and the Holy Spirit. Notice in 1 Corinthians 2:11 and 14, “For what man knows the things of man except the spirit of the man which is in him. Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God… But the natural man [a person who does have the spirit of man, but who does not have the Holy Spirit of God] does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

So we see that it is the spirit in man that explains the vast differences in self-awareness, intellect and intelligence between man and animals. This fact alone disproves Darwin’s theory of evolution. And though science widely promotes the theory of evolution, there are a few scientists who do recognize that man has a spiritual component within him. Listen to this astonishing statement from brain researcher Wolf Singer, as recently quoted in “Der Spiegel.” He states, “In this most complex matter of the universe [the human brain] something resides that recognizes itself as ‘I.’ This ‘I’ is ethereal. The human spirit cannot be measured with any balance in the gray substance…”

Do Animals Have a Spirit?

Are animals just “robots” without any spiritual components? Clearly, they don’t have the same spirit as man, but they have some kind of spirit in them that gives them the instincts God designed for each animal kind. Remember the young chimpanzee that was able to develop to a certain level of intelligence, and then reached a point where he was no longer a match for the young child? This barrier, as we have seen, was the human spirit in the little boy. But what gave the chimpanzee the ability to even learn what he did, limited as he was? And you might have heard about the famous gorilla, Koko, who apparently can communicate to an extent in sign language? How can we explain such intelligence?

We already know that God, a Spirit being, created all matter and energy out of spirit. We read that if He were to take back His spirit, all matter would cease to exist. Notice Numbers 16:22, “Then they fell on their faces and said, O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh…Again, Moses uses the same expression in Number 27:16, “The God of the spirits of all flesh.” Is this a reference to human beings only? It says, “all flesh.”

In the account of the flood in the book of Genesis, the term “all flesh” clearly refers to animals, as well as humans. For instance, Genesis 7:15 says that the animals went into the ark, “two by two, of all flesh in which is the breath of life.” And later in verse 21 we are told that “all flesh died that moved on the earth: birds and cattle and beasts and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and every man.” But notice verse 22, “All in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, all that was on the dry land, died.” This refers to a spirit residing in living creatures besides man.

Another interesting passage is found in Ecclesiastes, where King Solomon points out that just based on physical components, there is no difference between man and animals. We read in Ecclesiastes 3:19-20, “For what happens to the sons of men also happens to animals; one thing befalls them: as one dies, so dies the other. Surely, they all have one breath; man has no advantage over animals, for all is vanity. All go to one place: all are from the dust, and all return to dust.” But then Solomon asks a remarkable question in verse 21, showing that, just as man has a spirit in him, animals also have a spirit. Reading from the New Revised Standard Version, “Who knows whether the human spirit goes upward and the spirit of animals goes downward to the earth?”

We already saw that Solomon says in Ecclesiastes 12:7 that the human spirit of man does go upward to God at the time of man’s death. His point here is that we don’t know what happens to the spirit of animals when they die. The Bible simply does not tell us. But the Bible states that animals have a spirit, too. This explains what science cannot explain—how animals communicate among themselves. Killer whales have been observed getting into formation to attack a blue whale. Bees, through a complicated dance, “tell” their fellow bees where pollen can be found.

This also explains how God communicates with animals, whether to bring in motion—in very special circumstances—instinctive behavior (such as, how birds know when to start flying to warmer climates), or whether to motivate animals to very specific individual conduct in a given situation. In our sophisticated material world, we sometimes neglect to realize that God, who has created this world, also sustains it. He is very much involved in the events taking place here. Jesus Christ said that not one sparrow dies without the will of the Father.

Notice the question God asks Job in Job 39:27, “Does the eagle mount up at your command, and make its nest on high?” This is an instinctive action, as scientists would say, but HOW does the eagle know when to do it? We see here God’s involvement in this process. Let’s also note a certain animal conduct in response to direct intervention from God. Turn to Jonah 2:10, “So the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.” A similar incident is recorded in 1 Kings 17:4 and 6, “And it will be that you [Elijah] shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there… The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.”

When God wants to inspire human beings to do something, He works through their human spirit. Likewise, God deals with the spirit of animals when He wants them to do something. In any event, all these considerations show how utterly false is the theory of evolution, a theory that only looks at physical things and tries to explain them strictly from a physical standpoint. A spirit in man, as well as in animals, proves that evolution cannot be true.

Why Some Animals are Extinct

Still, you might ask, doesn’t extinction of certain animals support the evolutionary idea of ‘survival of the fittest’? Let’s take a closer look. Many animals became extinct long before Noah’s flood, not because of evolution or because of gradual adaptation and survival of the fittest, but simply because of catastrophes. Remember the Bible states that “In the beginning God created the heavens and earth. And the earth BECAME void and empty, and it became dark on the face of the deep.”

Here’s a quote from the magazine “The Wonder of Evolution.” On pages 15 and 17, we read: “The mass extinction 250 million years ago is perhaps the biggest catastrophe that has ever visited our planet…90 to 95% of all animals become extinct… Our clock keeps running—then suddenly, the earth becomes shaken by another catastrophe… 65 million years ago, a big meteor out of space approaches, ten kilometers in diameter. Near Mexico, it rams deep into the earth and creates a gigantic crater. Huge amounts of dust and ashes are thrown into the atmosphere. Firebrands and storms result, and volcanoes erupt, blowing even more ashes into the air. The earth becomes dark. A natural catastrophe of unimaginable proportions has begun, affecting first all the plants. Without sunlight they cannot survive. As a consequence, great famines break out, first amongst the plant eating animals, and ultimately amongst all living creatures on the planet.” On page 29, it reiterates, “It is assumed that the dinosaurs lost their basis for living about 65 million years ago when a huge comet crashed into the earth—a devastating catastrophe that was accompanied by a winter, lasting for decades.”

The BBC presented a television program entitled, “The Doomsday-Asteroid,” reporting that in 1908 a meteor blasted into Siberia and set free an amount of energy exceeding the atomic bomb of Hiroshima hundreds of times. If the meteor had crashed into New York, half a million people would have perished. The program continued to explain that it can be seen from old myths, as well as from the records of geology, that in the past big objects hit the earth and produced a lot of damage. The program stated that contrary to the records of the Bible talking about catastrophes, modern science had argued that the surface of the earth was formed gradually through rain and wind.

This idea of the gradual formation of the surface goes back to Huxley. Following that theory, science had rejected the concept of any catastrophes in the past. Until the 20th century, so said the television program, catastrophes simply had no room within science. But then the geologist Gene Schoemaker showed that a huge crater in Arizona was formed through an asteroid that hit the earth. More than 200 such craters have been identified on the earth, having been caused by meteors.

The authors of “In Search of Noah’s Ark,” Balsiger and Sellier, report on some of those incidents. They state on pages 62 and 63: “The meteorite that fell in prehistoric times near Winslow, Arizona, made a hole 4,500 feet across and 600 feet deep. It flung out masses of rock weighing up to 7,000 tons and is estimated to have hurled out altogether 400 million tons of rocks. The pressure of the impact exceeded 1,000,000 pounds per square inch.

“The still vaster crater 15 miles across at Ries Kessell in Bavaria also was made in prehistoric times by a meteorite the size of which must have been enormous. One cannot avoid comparison with the great meteorite of 1908 that crashed into the Tunguska valley in Siberia, destroying forests over a radius of twenty miles, and producing earth tremors recorded throughout the world. Although this meteorite probably weighed millions of tons, it must have been small compared with that that long before produced the craters at Winslow and Ries Kessell.”

In the 1960s, geologists Louis and Walter Alvarez made an astonishing discovery. They found a layer containing metals that appear on this earth in only very small quantities, but that can be found frequently in meteorites and asteroids. This layer showed up between the age of dinosaurs and mammals. The idea was compelling that asteroids were responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. But established science reacted to this thought with anger. On the BBC television program mentioned earlier, Schoemaker stated that science was simply unwilling to even entertain the thought that a stone, the size of a mountain, falling from the sky, was responsible for a global catastrophe. Schoemaker explained that the asteroid responsible for destroying the dinosaurs was probably 10 kilometers in size, which, as he said, is still viewed as a relatively small asteroid. Yet, the program pointed out that it is more or less accepted today that this asteroid destroyed at least two-thirds of all living creatures, and that 90% of the earth was engulfed in flames and the smoke darkened the sky for months, if not years.

It is very uncomfortable to realize, as scientist Clark Chapman of the planetary science institute explained, that an asteroid could hit the earth tomorrow. He stated that we know that they are out there, but that we have not found about 90% of them. If we continue searching for them, we would need 100 years to locate 99% of the asteroids that are circling the earth—and some of them are a hundred times bigger than the meteor that crashed into Siberia in 1908.

Those warnings are not cheap advertisements for Hollywood’s catastrophic movies. In July 1994, scientists viewed with astonishment when 21 comets hit the planet Jupiter. The second comet, called Nucleus 6, produced an explosion of 6 million megatons. This catastrophe occurred within our solar system. Imagine the destruction if the comet had hit the earth! The program concluded with a sobering remark, “The only thing that we know for sure is that one day, this earth will be once again hit by a devastating rock.”

In the Beginning…

The Bible confirms a catastrophic event in the past that destroyed a previously beautiful earth. This event produced darkness and devastation that God had to remove when He renewed the surface of the earth. Looking at Genesis 1 more carefully, we can see that the darkness was the result of comets or asteroids hitting the earth, as well as subsequent volcanic eruptions. Genesis 1:3 says that God said there should be light, and that there was light. But then we read that subsequently, God made the sun, the moon and the stars. Is this a contradiction? Was the great skeptic Voltaire correct when he asked sarcastically, “How could there be light, when there was not a sun yet?” The answer becomes clear when we remember what happens when a meteor or an asteroid or a comet hits the surface of the earth. The smoke from the flames can darken the sky for months, even years. Sunlight could not come through. God had to eliminate the darkness so that the light of the sun could shine through to the earth.

But still, how can it be that God made the sun on the fourth day, after He had already made light on the first day? The answer is that the Hebrew word translated “made” in verse 16 can also be translated “had made” or “will have made.” One must always consider the context. Remember in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God made the heavens and the earth.” God did indeed make the sun, moon and stars in the beginning, though we are not told the time frame of the original creation of these elements. Therefore, verse 16 must be correctly translated that God HAD already made the sun, moon and stars. Then on the fourth day God eliminated all the smoke and dust so that the sun, moon and stars could be viewed again in full clarity and strength.

Reading verses 14 and 15 again, “Then God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night…and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth.” In other words, let them become fully visible. Until then they divided nothing, as there was still a lot of smoke and ashes.

Commentator R.K. Harrison, in his “Introduction to the Old Testament,” points out that Genesis 1 is written as if the writer was on the earth at the time he wrote, and describes the phases of re-creation in the way he would have seen them. From that standpoint, the writer would have seen the sun, moon and stars on the fourth day when God removed the darkness caused by the fallout. All good and well, but, you might ask, “If the darkness and devastation on the earth described in Genesis 1:2 was the result of asteroids hitting the earth, then why do we read in verse 2 that the earth was covered with water?”

Quoting again from “In Search of Noah’s Ark,” the book describes volcanic eruptions and the devastation they cause. The book quotes the Encyclopedia Britannica, describing a volcanic eruption in 1883 on the island of Java. It reads on pages 58 and 59, “Until the night of August 26-27, 1883, [the island] had an area of about 18 square miles; at that time the most terrific volcanic eruption of modern times destroyed most of the island, so that its present area is only six square miles. One of the explosions produced the loudest noise ever heard by man; the sound was heard at a distance of 3000 miles. The shock waves produced by the eruption and the accompanying earthquake were felt around the world. It was computed that the column of stones, dust and ashes projected from the volcano shot up into the air for a height of 17 miles or more. Tidal waves produced by the eruption attained a height of 50 feet and killed more than 36,000 people along the coasts of Java and Sumatra. The dust caused a definitive lowering of temperature for two or three years and heavy rains worldwide during the six weeks following the eruption.”

Such huge tidal waves can also be caused by earthquakes in the ocean, moving through the ocean, as one magazine put it, with the speed of a jet airplane. For instance, in the spring of 1960, several earthquakes occurred on the coast of Chile. The subsequent tidal waves caused destruction as far away as Australia and Japan. In Chile itself a portion of the coast 500 kilometers in length and 30 kilometers in breadth sank about 2 meters. After the quake, salt water from the ocean was found inland for miles.

In December of 1811 and February of 1812, several earthquakes hit the Mississippi valley in Missouri, estimated at 8.3 and 8.7 on the Richter scale. The Mississippi River changed its course, and because the earth sank at that location, a lake came into existence, called the Reelfootlake, which is located today at the border of Tennessee and Kentucky.

As a matter of fact, scientists tell us that even today, in order to see most of the earth flooded with water, not too many spectacular occurrences are necessary. For instance, Bangkok, Thailand, is located only one meter above sea level. A large portion of the Netherlands is actually under sea level. Many developing countries, in fact, are threatened by the possibility of tidal waves or tsunamis.

So it is possible, even from a scientific view, that meteors, asteroids and comets hitting the earth, combined with resulting earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and sinking of the earth, as well as huge tidal waves or tsunamis, could have resulted in the surface of the earth being covered with water.

However, the catastrophe that occurred some time between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2, causing the extinction of all the creatures God originally created, was not the only global catastrophe mentioned in the Bible.

Perhaps the most familiar worldwide destruction is the flood described in Genesis 7 and 8. Have you ever thought about what events must have occurred to cause such worldwide destruction? Quoting again from the book “In Search of Noah’s Ark,” page 58, “…[Gen. 7:11] says, ‘On that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened’… A secondary source of water on the antediluvian Earth existed in vast subterranean heated and pressurized reservoirs either in the primeval crust or in the Earth’s mantle…The pressured waters below the crust suddenly erupted at a point of weakness. Collapse at one point would cause a chain reaction leading to similar eruptions at many other points around the world. The resulting atmospheric turbulence, combined with immense amounts of dust blown skyward from volcanoes, would begin condensation and precipitation of the canopy…The process would be similar to modern day cloud seeding to cause rain.”

To interject here, many theologians and scientists state that a vapor canopy once surrounded the earth. Theologians refer to Genesis 7:11 where it says that the “windows of heaven were opened.” They feel this is probably a reference to the pre-flood vapor canopy. Another reference to this canopy can be seen in Genesis 1:6-7, where we read that God made a firmament and divided the waters under the firmament from the waters above the firmament, giving reference to a water vapor canopy. This canopy, scientists explain, would have created a greenhouse effect. This seems to be confirmed in Genesis 2:5 where we are told that the antediluvian world was watered by dew or mist, not by rain. This dew would have been dependent upon humidity, saturation, temperature, dew point and condensation—all made possible through the water vapor canopy.

Continuing now from the book “In Search Of Noah’s Ark,” citing from page 59, “We see the possible significance of the order of destruction mentioned in Genesis 7:11. Subterranean upheavals within the oceans, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes and the gushing forth of those waters triggered the opening of the windows of heaven, and the canopy waters poured upon the Earth as torrential rains for 40 days and 40 nights before slacking off to light rain for the next 110 days…”

But what started the whole thing? Here is one possible answer from the same book. On page 62 it says, “We believe it’s plausible that a gigantic meteorite colliding with Earth could have jarred the Earth’s crust so tremendously that it set off the universal cataclysmic conditions necessary to have caused the rising of the sea beds, earthquakes, volcanoes and the collapse of the water canopy.”

We understand, of course, that it was God who brought about the flood. But as He used water to destroy the earth’s surface, it is legitimate to ask what else, based on Biblical evidence, God might have used to bring about the results. And a meteorite hitting the earth is a possible answer, since God has used meteorites at other times as well to bring destruction on this planet. Remember the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah? Looking at the Biblical record describing the destruction, we are prompted to ask if perhaps God used meteorites or asteroids when destroying Sodom and Gomorrah. Let’s read Genesis 19:24-28, “Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the Lord out of the heavens. So He overthrew [destroyed] those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground… The smoke of the land …went up like the smoke of a furnace.”

Consider also the plagues that God poured out on Egypt at the time of Moses. Exodus 9:22-33 says, “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be hail in all the land of Egypt—on man, on beast, and on every herb of the field; throughout the land of Egypt. So there was hail, and fire mingled with hail, so very heavy that there was none like it in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation…Then the thunder and the hail ceased, and the rain was not poured on the earth.”

Another possible encounter with a meteor can be seen in Joshua 10:11, “And it happened, as they fled before Israel…that the Lord cast down large hailstones from heaven on them…There were more who died from the hailstones than those whom the children of Israel killed with the sword.” Also note Judges 5:20, “They fought from the heavens; the stars from their courses fought against [King] Sisera.”

Punishment for Sin

We have seen that God, who created the heavens and the earth and everything in them, has at times chosen to punish sinful mankind by destroying the entire surface of the earth, or in some cases, isolated regions. We have seen that the surface of the earth was destroyed, in all likelihood by asteroids, causing the extinction of dinosaurs. The cause for the destruction was sin. The Bible tells us that angels occupied the earth prior to man and their leader was Lucifer. But Lucifer became proud and haughty. He induced the angels under him to fight against the very God who created them. Of course, they lost. You can read about this gigantic spiritual battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil in many places in the Bible; i.e.; Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28, Revelation 12:4, 2 Peter 2:4, Luke 10:18.

Lucifer’s name, meaning Lightbringer, was changed to Satan, meaning Adversary. The angels under him became known as demons. And because of the sin committed by Satan and his angels, the earth that they inhabited was destroyed. This physical destruction, caused by sudden catastrophes, explains part of the fossil record. Remember, fossils can only be formed in a sudden way. Gradual changes don’t create fossils. Some fossils were formed during other catastrophes, such as the world-wide flood. Again, such catastrophes took place because of sinful conduct of the inhabitants of the earth. A lesson we should learn from this is that sin has a price—you reap what you sow. The fossil record proves that evolution did not take place, and could not have taken place. Rather, fossils establish the existence of sudden catastrophes.

But perhaps more importantly, the Bible tells us that such cataclysmic events are not merely a thing of the past. Rather, because of the continuing sinful conduct of mankind, they will happen again. Yes, God will surely bring destruction to this earth again, to teach mankind that sin does not pay. And, we are not without warning from God Himself.

Jesus Christ spoke repeatedly of increased earthquake activity just prior to His return to this earth. Matthew 24:7 tells us that “there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.” Isaiah 24:19-20 warns us, “The earth is violently broken, the earth is split open, the earth is shaken exceedingly. The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall totter like a hut; its transgression shall be heavy upon it.” Revelation 11:13 tells us of a huge earthquake still to come, in the very near future, “In the same hour, there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city [Jerusalem] fell. In the earthquake seven thousand men were killed.”

Big earthquakes can, of course, occur without any impact from meteors. But as we saw, they can also be the result of such an impact. And it is interesting that some of these earthquakes soon to strike the earth are not “usual” earthquakes. Note Luke 21:25-26, “And there will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars; and on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them from fear and expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of heaven will be shaken.”

Consider this account in Revelation 16:18, 20-21, “And there were noises and thunderings and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such a mighty and great earthquake as had not occurred since men were on the earth. Then every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. And great hail from heaven fell upon men, each hailstone about the weight of a talent. Men blasphemed God because the plague of the hail, since that plague was exceedingly great.”

Parallel scriptures in the book of Isaiah add more insight into what is going to happen very soon. Isaiah 29:6 tells us, “You will be punished by the Lord of hosts with thunder and earthquake and great noise, with storm and tempest and the flame of devouring fire.” Isaiah 30:30 continues, “The Lord will cause His glorious voice to be heard, and show the descent of His arm, with the indignation of His anger and the flame of a devouring fire, with scattering, tempest and hailstones.”

It doesn’t take a great deal of imagination to realize the awesome devastation that will occur again on the earth, caused by comets, asteroids or meteors. John writes about it in Revelation 6:12-13, “I looked when He opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood. And the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind.”

Revelation 8:7-12 says, “The first angel sounded: And hail and fire followed, mingled with blood, and they were thrown to the earth. And a third of the trees were burned up, and all green grass was burned up. Then the second angel sounded: And something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood. And a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed. Then the third angel sounded: And a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is Wormwood; A third of the waters became wormwood, and many men died from the water, because it was made bitter. Then the fourth angel sounded: And a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them were darkened; A third of the day did not shine, and likewise the night.”

Darkness will again cover the whole earth. But why? Why will God bring such terrible destruction upon the earth? The answer can be found in several places in the Bible. Revelation 11:18 tells us that the time has come that God “should destroy those who destroy the earth.” Man continues to live in sin, and because of it, even the earth is affected. Hosea 4:1-3 says, “The Lord brings a charge against the inhabitants of the land: There is no truth or mercy or knowledge of God in the land [Man would rather believe in the atheistic concept of evolution.] By swearing and lying, killing and stealing and committing adultery, they break all restraint, with bloodshed after bloodshed. Therefore the land will mourn, and everyone who dwells there will waste away, with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air, even the fish of the sea will be taken away.”

Man has forsaken God. He refuses to seek God and correct his sinful ways, so God will bring destruction to the entire earth. He has done it before, and He will do so again. But you need not be a victim of those catastrophes—there is a way of escape if you are truly following God—keeping His laws, statutes and judgments—if you love Him with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself. How do we show love for God? By keeping His commandments. Note Revelation 3:10, from the New Jerusalem Bible, “Because you have kept my commandment to persevere, I will keep you safe in the time of trial which is coming for the whole world, to put the people of the world to the test.”

The immediate future of this earth looks grim. But if you are one of God’s true followers, there is a way out. Just as God protected Noah and his family in an ark while the rest of the world perished in a flood, and as God protected Lot and his daughters by bringing them out of Sodom, so God will protect His people here on earth. We will not have been removed from this earth in a secret rapture, spending our time in heaven with Christ, but we will be at a safe place here on earth. Christ says in Luke 21:28, “Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near.” God is testing us today to see what’s in our hearts, to see if we will keep His commandments. Will you be one of those worthy of protection?

If we want to follow God, we must believe what God says, as we pointed out at the beginning of this booklet. And God tells us very clearly in His inspired Word, the Bible, that He created the heavens and the earth, as well as man. We did not evolve from animals, but man was created directly by God.

How accurately the Apostle Paul described the wise and learned of his day who believed the concept of evolution, as we pointed out at the beginning of this booklet! He stated in Romans 1:20-23, “For since the creation of the world His [God’s] invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse…Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man and birds and fourfooted animals and creeping things.”

God is saying the same to all of us today. We also are without excuse if we replace the truth of God and His creation with the ungodly idea of evolution, essentially degrading man as descending from a mollusk. What an insult to mankind, and what blasphemy toward man’s Creator!