What follows is not an excerpt but the entire book written by Walter Arcel, published in book form in 2005:

A SIMPLE

EXPLANATION

A COMPREHENSIVE TALK ON A MOST URGENT MATTER

WALTER ARCEL

Ransom Press, a division of

Grace and Sanity Ministries

Inyokern, CA

A Simple Explanation

First Printing, 2005

Also from the same author: Faith 101

This edition is published by Ransom Press, a division of Grace and Sanity Ministries, a not-for-profit religious corporation, Inyokern, CA. Mailing address: P.O. Box 0879, Inyokern, CA 93527-0879.

Copyright 2002 by Walter Arcel. All rights reserved. Any part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise with the proper permission of the publisher, as provided by copyright law.

Printed in the United States of America. ISBN 0-9634540-5-6

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One Hell

Heaven and Hell . A pardon without conditions. Pure, Holy and Undefiled. Make sure you can change a flat tire. A cornered rat. Rebellion. Guilt. Joseph Campbell, Carl Sagan, Clarence Darrow, Freud, Jung. Ignorant and afraid. Second generation Christians. Holiness. It's enough to gag a maggot.

Chapter Two Praise

We look God in the eye. I'm O.K., you're O.K.. Praise . Fear of God). David. Solomon's fault. Idolatry. Graven images. Born in the land. Moses and the Prophets. Grace exists only in the Law. That thorn in Paul's flesh. Confession. Holiness. Redemption. Repentance.

Chapter Three The World

The end of the world. Hatred the Arabs have for the Jews. The last days. Wickedness and violence of men. The wall of denial. Guilt and death, and punishment after death.

Chapter Four The Gospel

The Covenant. Election & Free Will. Does God keep control of the number of people born? Who are we talking to? Is praying for the dead a false hope? How about those who never heard? Sincerely wrong. Are we talking to the heathen? Pearls in front of the pigs. The Lost Sheep of Israel. Are some of the heathen saved?

Chapter Five Resisting & Free Will

Can one be chosen of God but still be able to resist him? Iniquity and Idolatry. Judas Iscariot. Rage of Satan. Beguiling Adam. Peter declares. The Lamb of the Passover. Pride is tough. Look at Solomon. My sheep will hear my voice.

Chapter Six Death & Life

What was your life for? Awareness of death, will to live. Creativity and Depression. Cravings and desires. Futility of life. The door of death.

Chapter Seven Faith

Good health, prosperity and peace. Attracted and repulsed. Feed my lambs. Faith. Assurance of salvation. Glorious mercy of God.

Chapter Eight Annihilation or Reincarnation?

The sheep must know how the heathen think. Hopes of the heathen. Life is a waste of time. Justice and fairness. Kill yourself while you're still good looking. Alternative professions. What if Hell does not exist?

Chapter Nine The Chosen

If he saves ten why not twenty? The Law is for the Israelites and for the stranger. Deist- Atheist. Are Election and Free Will mutually exclusive?

Chapter Ten The Resurrection

Why did the Romans not come up with a body? The Resurrection of Jesus the Christ. A strange silence. The resurrection was a hoax. The powerful Christians. Nobody can make them shut up. He was not really dead . He went into hiding. Lack of a body. Not enough skeptics.

CHAPTER ONE

Hell

Heaven and Hell . A pardon without conditions. Pure, Holy and Undefiled . Make sure you can change a flat tire. A cornered rat. Rebellion. Guilt. Joseph Campbell, Carl Sagan, Clarence Darrow, Freud, Jung. Ignorant and afraid. Second generation Christians. Holiness. It's enough to gag a maggot.

Heaven and Hell

If the explanation is simple enough anybody should understand it. Say it plainly, say it in a simple way and people should be able to get it. Things have gotten too complicated. Those who should know the subject well, preachers, theologians, teachers, don't tell it like it is. What many of them tell us is either irrelevant or unclear. This lack of relevance and clarity has taken away the peace, and the fear, we should have. Peace because he has guaranteed a result in our favour, and fear because of the consequence of rejecting what he has given us. There is urgency in this matter because the stakes are very high, nothing less than Heaven and Hell.

Simple does not mean limited. All possibilities must still be covered, and information continually refined. Only then can one be sure that everyone sees the situation clearly.

And, yet, I find that refining the information doesn't make a lot of difference. It doesn't seem to penetrate the thick wall that is out there. People close their eyes and stop their ears, they don't want to know. They don't appear to be at all concerned about their final destiny. They go on with their day to day business with absolutely no care for where they are going to end up. But, of course, they should care. Nobody can afford to go to Hell after they die.

A pardon without conditions

It is easy to understand that people don't want to consider a bad outcome. Hell is not something people want to think about. The possibility of Hell ahead is probably the main reason for avoiding the subject regarding our final destiny. We know we are unclean, and we know there is no way to avoid it. But, precisely because we know we are unclean, a free pass out of Hell should be highly desirable. If people knew for sure their sins have been paid for, if they knew for sure all their trespasses have been taken off the books, they would go for it. Or so one would think. People should jump at the offer of a pardon without conditions. But they don't. It must be that the situation is not completely clear.

Pure, Holy and Undefiled

This is how it is: God is Pure, Holy, and Undefiled. We are Impure, Unholy, and Defiled. The purity of God can not possibly tolerate our presence. There is a total lack of tolerance from purity towards impurity. This is so because if purity were to be exposed to impurity, purity would be contaminated and would no longer be pure. Purity would cease to exist if it were exposed to impurity. Our natural state is totally incompatible with God.

Those are the facts. By themselves these facts are not terribly important. What difference does it make if God tells me yes, you are bad, deceitful, wicked past measure, in all the secret places of your mind, beyond human help you are impure? Big deal. Why should I care? I've always known myself to be wicked and bad and impure so it was no big surprise to me when God pointed that out. The problem with purity versus impurity arises if Hell exists. Hell is the factor that makes the difference, the one possibility that cannot be ignored. The possible existence of a horrible place waiting for us after we die is what makes the difference in this purity versus impurity situation. The horror and suffering one might experience in Hell are too much. Nobody with any sense would consider it bearable.

Of course, some people think they are going to be all right, they are going to be able to handle it. We'll be in Hell where we can be totally carnal. That is such nonsense. Only a complete idiot would think he can handle it, or that it's going to be a long party with all his friends. It's hard to tell from here but it's probably not very smart to assume it's all going to be all right. There is no place to recoil to in Hell.

Make sure you can change a flat tire

"Hope for the best but prepare for the worst" is a good cliche. One should always take the worst possibility into account. Does it look like rain? Take your umbrella. Going for a ride in your car? Make sure you can change a flat tire. Caution should be the standard procedure.

Unless God is bluffing, and one would have to take that chance, Hell is a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth, a place of utter darkness, a place of burning and torment and unending desperation, where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. Revelation 14:11, "And the smoke of their torment ascended for ever and ever, and they have no rest day nor night..." There is total consciousness and sensation of feelings; all these are felt, thirst, anguish, fear. There is the total awareness of having had the opportunity to go to Heaven but instead you let yourself slide into Hell.

And for what?, for nothing, totally for nothing. Just because your neck was too stiff to admit to God that you are unclean (like everybody else) and you didn't pay enough attention when it was being told you. You are going to Hell for nothing because you could have taken the free gift offered. You let yourself drift into this by inattention. And now there is no escape. And what is that burning and torment? Is it really a fire that burns but does not consume? Or is it rage at yourself because you let yourself get into this terrible situation? Or is it both?

There is thick darkness as in a cave, enveloping fear, complete helplessness, and, probably worst of all, the agony of wanting to end the suffering but not being able to.

A cornered rat

Those are some of the available descriptions we have of Hell. Hell happens to be, also, the final destination of anyone who is not Pure, Holy, and Undefiled. I know exactly the feeling of a cornered rat.

That is the situation as far as humans are concerned. There is no way to bridge the chasm and we have no control over our final destiny. There is no way we can ever be Pure, Holy and Undefiled. If for no other reason, because all the time we were in rebellion against God would contaminate whatever Purity, Holiness, and Undefiled-ness we could muster at any given, fleeting, moment. Our life is one continuum, there is no way to make dirty water clean by pouring clean water into it. If you pour clean water into dirty water, the dirty water is not going to become clean. The dirty water will become clean-er but it will not become clean.

Rebellion

By the time we acquire the consciousness of our own uncleanness the contamination has already taken place. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. Our thoughts are evil from our youth. Our enemy foments rebellion in us long before we have any idea of the consequences of that rebellion. And it doesn't stop there. We continue to be corrupted even after we become saved. Every person within the sound of this voice, or every person who reads this, will confirm this corruption in themselves if they are truthful. The big change that accompanies salvation is that we no longer act on our basest impulses, but those basest impulses remain, and with that the need for grace all the time.

The problem we all face is death and its aftermath. People can believe what they want about that. But there are only two possibilities that stand out: Something will happen; or, nothing will happen. And if something happens, it can be either good or bad. If it's good it's O.K., but if it's bad....

What if nothing happens? Well, that's fine, you'll go to sleep like a rock, never again to wake up to suffering and distress. That your life was for nothing, that it was as the vapour that rises out of the dew when the sun hits it and it's gone in an instant, that's another story. Is that the end of everything and there is nothing after death? Will everything be O.K.? Personally, I wouldn't know. Is there a notary public somewhere, someone I can trust, someone who can give me a signed document guaranteeing everything it's going to be O.K. after I die?

But in spite of the reassurances of the blind, people know, deep in their gut people know that something could happen. And it can absolutely be good or bad. It could be a badness of major proportions. Even those who say this is all there is and when we die we just die and that's the end of it and nothing will happen, even they know that something could happen. At the very least they don't know if nothing will happen. They go past the graveyard whistling, trying to not be afraid. They scorn those ridiculous, antiquated, uneducated ideas about Hell and Punishment. By uniting their voices in agreement they will make Hell go away.

Guilt

And yet there is this curious thing called guilt. One definition of guilt is "the awareness of deserving punishment."

When Cain killed Abel, God put a mark on Cain to make sure nobody would kill him to avenge the death of Abel. But Cain said in Genesis 4:13: "My punishment is greater than I can bear." Instead of being glad to escape vengeance from others (his own kin, of course), Cain despaired. The despair of Cain indicates that the weight of guilt is comparable to death, inescapable, relentless. It will hound you in the night.

What is this awareness of deserving punishment? Why do we have it at all? It tells us there is something we should do but are not doing; or, there is something we should have but do not have. But we don't know what it is we should do, or should have. People do good works because they guess that is what they should do. They need some credit for their life. Otherwise, what was their life for? One must be a good person, generous, compassionate, forgiving, loving. Surely that's what it is.

But something keeps nagging in the background. We still don't know what it is we are not doing, or do not have. There is an odd feeling about it, like being in a bind.

Why should we have this awareness of deserving punishment? What is it that we are failing to do or don't have? Where does guilt come from? Do we get it by osmosis? There is guilt in the collective unconscious and we get it from there, is that it? Or, perhaps, it is true that we got brainwashed as kids and a code of morals was stamped on the tabula rasa of our individual formation, and now we can't get rid of that imprint branded in our psyche.

Joseph Campbell, Carl Sagan, Clarence Darrow, Freud, Jung

I don't know about that. Anything that is learned can be unlearned, overridden. If there is better information today than what existed in the past we should be able to replace one set of beliefs with another. Some people thought the Earth was flat, at one time. Better information came along and people realized it wasn't so. If all the stuff about Judgment Day and Hell is false, and nothing will happen, and there is no God, why can't people just get rid of this thing, get rid of this awareness of deserving punishment, just brush it away? All you have to do is attend another seminar that will set you straight. Somebody smarter than you will tell you there is nothing to fear. Joseph Campbell thought there was nothing to fear from the God of the Bible. Carl Sagan the same way. Oh, yea, they knew everything. Clarence Darrow, Freud, Jung, they all mocked the Bible, they frothed at the mouth with hate toward the Bible and now they are all dead. And where are they now? Are they rejoicing or lamenting? Are they somewhere or are they nowhere? And if they are somewhere, is it good or bad? Tell me if you know.

Going back to guilt, is it possible that the reason we can't get rid of guilt is that there is something outside ourselves we cannot control? And this something is an invisible being who can make us feel this awareness of deserving punishment? An invisible being hugely bigger than us that we cannot control? That's a scary thought, isn't it?

The important thing we should do but are not doing, and that we should have but do not have, the important thing guilt points to, is that we must be sure to get the coin that can pay for our sins. We will need it on the last day of our lives.

Ignorant and afraid

A big part of the problem is that we are both ignorant and afraid of the Bible. It is because we are ignorant that we are afraid. We don't know how good God is. God is the only one who can eliminate this guilt, remove it from us. But to our own hurt we reject him. We are afraid of the Bible, we are afraid to be condemned by the Bible because we have heard lots of preaching against sin and we know we are sinners. Which takes us to respond to the Bible with defensiveness, hopelessness and helplessness. Who are you to tell me anything? You made me like this and now you ask me for a price I cannot pay? Did I make myself, or did you make me? The reaction at being in an impossible situation is anger, defiance, and rebellion; which, as far as I am concerned, is completely natural.

Second generation Christians

By the way, rebellion doesn't exist only among the heathen. It is alive and well in the Christian Church. It is a more subtle kind of rebellion, but it is rebellion nonetheless. Some of this can be seen in the movement of the day, "holiness," and the pursuit of it. It frequently happens among those who might be called "second generation" Christians, though they may be third, fourth, whatever generation. These are mostly sheltered people, safe within a church community. They have been in the Church since they were kids and don't really believe they are sinners. They were never in rebellion, they grew up in the church. They have always loved the Lord. They talk about holiness, living a clean life and being of service. They live mostly in denial, totally unaware of their urges, hormones, and resentments.

Holiness

They are not grateful for salvation, salvation is a given, it's nothing to think about because they deserve it. They are going for holiness. If they are grateful for anything it is for being such good people, of great value to God, very worthy.

It's enough to gag a maggot

It's enough to gag a maggot. Worthy, indeed. Worthy of flogging, of torture and of death. People kid themselves if they think God needs them. God doesn't need anybody. He had a donkey talk to Balaam, he had ravens feeding Elijah. He can do without us. He doesn't need us to push the planets. The only reason he saves us is his pity for us.

The main problem some of these people face is that by not acknowledging their own depravity they have no defense against Satan. When they get into a situation they cannot control and end up doing something they should never have done, they don't know what happened, how they got into that. They went into it thinking: I'm safe, I can do this because "I'll resist the Devil and he will flee from me." That is so foolish. Putting oneself in the path of temptation with the confidence one can resist it is totally foolish. It's as if a recovering alcoholic were to buy a six-pack of beer and put it in the refrigerator to see how well he can resist the temptation to get drunk again. It's lame. Don't do that, it is better to flee from temptation than it is to test the strength of Satan. He has had a lot of time to study and know human nature.

The fall of a brother or a sister is a serious matter. People should be made aware of pits and snares, and how easy it is to slip when a person doesn't know his own depravity. We have well-known examples of high-profile Christians falling into adultery and fornication. Why? What happened? Well, they didn't know themselves, they didn't know they were capable of such things. They thought they were pure, holy, and incapable of being defiled. When you don't know you are a sinner you have no defense.

It can start in a very innocent way. Giving counsel to a friend of the opposite sex, for instance. It doesn't take very much to empathize with another person, their feelings and their troubles. There is a hug, there is a tear, an embrace, all sweet and innocent for a while. Giving comfort to another person can feel very good. But then, even adults married to others who had no intention of going astray start looking forward to these intimate sessions, and it doesn't take very long for them to do something they'll regret for the rest of their lives.

Of course, there are others who don't get into that sort of thing. Why take a chance with a disease when there is so much pornography available? The Internet is much more discreet, and as long as there is no actual fornication with another human being, what's the harm? If we are only accountable for what we do and not what we think there is no problem. Is there? I tell you, one look inside will make you cringe at your wickedness. I know that for a fact.

CHAPTER TWO

Praise

We look God in the eye. I'm O.K., you're O.K.. Praise . Fear of God). David. Solomon's fault. Idolatry. Graven images. Born in the land. Moses and the Prophets. Grace exists only in the Law. That thorn in Paul's flesh. Confession. Holiness. Redemption. Repentance.

In many Churches there is no longer an exclusive reliance on the Holy Spirit as the only purifying agent. Christianity has become just another belief system with its own set of rules like any other belief system. Clean up your act, give up a bad habit, recite certain words and you're there. There is no longer an acknowledgment of internal corruption.

We look God in the eye

Now we are casual with God. There's nothing to it. We pat him on the back and tell him, hey man, you're really cool, I praise you. We act as if we had equality with him. How could I really praise the exact work of a bricklayer unless I knew with expertise how to lay bricks? If I knew precisely what it takes to do a fancy job with bricks then I could praise someone who has done a good job. I could say, all right, that's really good, you've done a good job. I would have the authority, based on expertise, to praise someone. I may say the job is beautiful, while acknowledging that I don't know what it took to do. But, if I say, "you've done a good job" and I don't really know how it was done I would just be throwing a hollow word of praise in the air without real conviction.

I'm O.K., you're O.K.

Do I know the totality of God? This idea that I can praise God with such familiarity is ridiculous. Do I stand on a mound, look him in the eye, and tell him "I'm O.K. you're O.K.?" People have taken "What a friend we have in Jesus" to the extreme.

Praise

Besides, just saying "we praise you" is not in itself praise. Praise is to say: You are the biggest, the most powerful, the most intelligent, the most fierce, the most terrible, the most creative, the most compassionate, the most understanding, the most loving, the most forgiving, the most magnificent.

That is praise, or an example of praise. The other side of that coin of praise to God refers to me and says that I am small, weak, a moron, vengeful, a mocker, hateful, unforgiving by nature, dark.

If nothing else I can praise God by reason of my own unworthiness.

The reaction to encountering God in any fashion should be that of falling down on the ground face first, devoid of all strength. In your mind, at least. There is such misunderstanding of the majesty of God that many think because God made us in his image we are equal to him. What happens then? Well, once you look God in the eye it is only a short jump to saying: I can sanctify myself.

The heathen think exactly the same way. I can do this myself, I don't need a god to tell me what's right and what's wrong. I, too, can feed the poor and protect the needy.

There is so much pride among church members today that it's hard to see how anybody is saved at all. Most churchgoers are in one way or another trying to make better persons of themselves. Well, that's the message of the heathen world, to be a better person. What's the difference between the Church and the heathen? Not much, incredibly enough. As stated before, the work of the Holy Spirit as the only cleansing influence is much talked about but not trusted.

True humility in front of God doesn't exist in a lot of places. People don't realize that the one important thing they need, to be a real disciple, is to have the total awareness that God is watching their every move, and hearing their every thought. A Christian should be like a locust and be able to act without an apparent king.

The all-permeating and all-knowing presence of the Holy Spirit is not emphasized. Instead, the Church will appoint somebody over you to hold you accountable, to disciple you. Similar to a parole officer. God is near their mouth but far from their reins.

A most troubling aspect regarding this "second- generation" Christians is how many of them go astray from the God of the Bible. They are born in the church but they go into Buddhism, Hinduism, Atheism. How can that be? According to the instructions most of their parents pay lip service to, children should be brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. But admonition, of course, is instruction, rules, Law. However, if the Law is no longer operative as in those who like to say we're under grace and not under Law then there is really no room for admonition. What all this has become in reality is that this second generation is (or has been) brought up in the nurture of the Lord but not in his admonition. Only force, brute force, works in the spirit of men. I cannot be enticed by blessings, only the curses are persuasive to me.

Fear of God

My Bible does not say that the love of God is the beginning of wisdom. My Bible says it is the fear of God that is the beginning of wisdom. It is impossible to love God until one is aware of the terrible end that is avoided by running to his protection, a protection that came at enormous cost to him.

The consequence of the lack of fear of many second generation Christians, those who have been brought up in the Church, is that they will be lost. They will get into all the religions of the heathen, with the belief that the Bible is just a religion and that all religions are the same. But the Bible is not a religion. Religions have come from the Bible but the Bible itself is not a religion. The Bible is the self- revelation of God to a nation, Israel; the descendants of Isaac, Abraham, Shem, Noah, Adam.

David

David was a man after God's own heart. He was a force for good and inspiration to all Israel. There was idolatry all around him but he was unwavering in looking to God in the good and the bad of his life. David was a pillar for all Israel (he is a pillar for us even today, with his unmatched descriptions of the mercy of God), and God protected Israel while David was there. There are no better descriptions of the mercy of God than those given by David. No one has a better understanding of God than does David. David was an Israelite Jew, i.e., descendant of Judah, descendant of Israel. Not all the Israelites are Jews but all the Jews are Israelites.

David united the divisions that existed previously between Israel under Saul to the north and Judah to the south. David handed down this united kingdom to Solomon.

Solomon's fault

But this kingdom was split under Solomon's rule. The ruin of the united kingdom Solomon inherited from David was strictly Solomon's fault. For all the wisdom Solomon was supposed to have he sure fouled that one up. He went headlong into idolatry, he built temples for the gods of his heathen wives; he sacrificed to heathen gods of the nations round about, even to Molech and Chemosh to which children were sacrificed. This is rejection of the God of the Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, later called Israel.

The result of this rejection was that God rent the kingdom in two. This ripping apart of the ten tribes to the North, and Judah and Benjamin to the south, was decreed during Solomon's reign but put into effect after Solomon died. A Northern kingdom composed of ten tribes called "Israel" was given to Jeroboam, and a Southern kingdom called "Judah" comprised of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin were given to Rehoboam, a son of Solomon,.

But God did not split the Kingdom because the Northern Kingdom was any more righteous. The Northern Kingdom under Jeroboam did things that were at least as bad as what Solomon had done. Jeroboam made two golden calves, put them on altars at north and south ends of his territory and proclaimed that those calves were the gods that had brought Israel up out of Egypt. And Jeroboam was merely imitating what Aaron, the brother of Moses, had done a few hundred years earlier. Aaron made two golden calves even as Moses was in the mount receiving God's commandments. Unbelief and rebellion are the marks of humanity.

Idolatry

At any rate, the whole kingdom under Solomon earlier, Israel under Jeroboam and Judah under Rehoboam later, all went into the abomination that God hates the most: Idolatry.

It has been suggested that money or power can be idols, that these can be worshiped in such a way that it becomes idolatry. No, that's not the way it is. Idolatry is far more serious. Idolatry is to attribute the source of that money or that power to something other than the God of the Bible. Idolatry can also be to believe "I am the source, by my strength have I gotten this." Or, it is the presumption that with a ritualistic type of behaviour, one can tap into an unconscious force that will respond to our bidding. Idolatry is to attribute the power of God to that which is not God.

Graven images

Graven images are representatives of deities. There is nothing that angers God more than attributing his power, his creation, his giving of life, to some phony figure that is at best a dumb graven image that can neither see nor hear, and it needs be borne because it cannot walk, representing gods that don't exist.

Golden calves are graven images, little Buddhas sitting in the corner are graven images, little figurines of bulls or lustful little demons signifying prosperity are graven images, cute statues of angels are graven images. Saints, icons, Jesus on the cross, are graven images. It is comforting to have a graven image because it is something one can look at, something one can bow down to, acknowledge in some sort of sacramental way when passing by it. I used to burn incense and have graven images. I didn't know they were "graven images," I thought they were just nice or cute. When I realized how incredibly offensive these things were to God I got rid of them as if they were burning my hands, which they were.

But I understand; it is comforting to have a graven image. Perhaps an invisible power can be reached through it. I am well acquainted with the desire to manipulate the invisible world to my advantage. Eventually, the occult must be explored, because some kind of power must be more actively pursued to be accessed. Satan says you can get what you want if you follow these (whatever) instructions, but he is the Master deceiver, liar above all.

Idolatry and rejection of Christ go together. I know that, too.

Graven images that depict God in any way, making him into any likeness of any thing that is in the earth or under the earth or in the water above or below, are forbidden.

Part of the reason God does not want anything representing him is because he is so different from anything we can possibly imagine, that it is an utter insult to think we can guess. Totally presumptuous. To what can God be compared?

The land of Israel and the Church are indeed types of the Kingdom of God. Fortunately, they are only types, not the real thing. There is no chance to be lost in Heaven.

But in those types God seems to be showing us that even when we are given every possible privilege, we could still be dumb enough to reject him and go into idolatry. That is, to attribute the power of God to that which is not God.

Eventually Israel, the ten tribes to the north of Judah, were taken out of the land. These ten tribes, later known as the "ten lost tribes," were taken out of the land altogether by the Assyrians around 722 B.C. The Assyrians took them to their country and brought down their own people to inhabit the vacated cities. Some Israelites were left in the land and there were also some who came back, particularly Levites to instruct the new tenants. This in itself is a peculiar story and so much a mirror image of us. The new tenants in the land were being attacked by beasts, so they sought help from the people who used to live there (the Israelites) to tell them the customs of the God of the land. At the end of that whole episode after instruction was given them regarding the Law of sacrifices, ordinances, commandments, etc., the Bible says in II Kings: 17, 32: "So they feared the LORD, and served their own gods..."

That's exactly what we do, we say we serve God but go our own way.

How is God served? God doesn't need breakfast. God is served when you put your attention solely on him. You fear him, you bow down to him, you seek help from him. When he talks about serving him that is what he means. He has definitely told us not to fear other gods, or bow down to them, or to seek help from them.

As a point of interest, the region these Assyrians took over was Samaria and eventually these people mingled, intermarried, with the remaining Israelites. Their descendants were, in the time of Jesus, the "Samaritans," a mixed breed despised by the Jews. Jesus himself was accused of being a Samaritan, such was the dislike for him in some quarters.

At any rate, Judah and Benjamin to the south did not fare much better than Israel to the north. It took a while longer but they were taken away by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, to Babylon around 586 B.C. All this happened hundreds of years after entering the land. In both instances, to the north and to the south, a small remnant of Israelites and Jews were left but the vast majority were removed from the land.

Born in the land

The point of mentioning all these events is that they are terribly alarming. All these people to the north and to the south were born in the land!, several generations, but were nevertheless taken away. I'm astonished. Is it so easy to become lost? Is that a picture of going to Hell? They were born! in the promised land, just like those who are born in the church.

Why were they taken away? Well, God punished them, he punished them by withdrawing his protection and hiding from them. All God has to do to punish someone is to hide from them. He abandoned them to Satan, he took away his protection. Because they went into idolatry, they hedged their bets, they forsook God. They figured the gods of the heathen were just as good as the God who had brought them up out of Egypt, by signs and wonders. They never saw these kinds of signs done by the idols of the heathen, but adopted them anyway. After the death of Moses and the death of all the people who came out of Egypt with Moses, the new people no longer had direct experience of what had happened. Even though God tells the adults to be sure to tell their children what went on, those children ended up not believing that what Moses had written and their fathers had told them had actually happened.

Moses and the Prophets

In Luke 16 Jesus tells the story of the rich man and Lazarus after they are both dead, when Lazarus is in the bosom of Abraham and the rich man is in Hell, and they see one another across an abyss. The rich man begs Abraham to send him Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool his tongue, for he was tormented in the flame. Abraham responds that it is not possible to send Lazarus across the great gulf fixed separating them. So, the former rich man says, let Lazarus go back and testify unto my five brothers lest they also come into this place of torment.

And Jesus, who knew the story from the inside, quoted Abraham saying in Luke 16: 29,30, 31, "they have Moses and the prophets: Let them hear them."

"And he said, Nay, father Abraham, but if one went to them from the dead they will repent."

"And he said unto him, if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead."

Of course, that is the case with Jesus. People are not persuaded even though he rose from the dead. It was true then and it is true now. If people don't believe Moses and the prophets they will not believe even if one comes back from the dead. The unbelief regarding the Pentateuch has been with us ever since the last person who came out of Egypt died. After that, it's been downhill all the way.

By the way, the attacks of Satan on the Pentateuch indicate how important the Pentateuch is.

So, are the people who were taken out of the land a picture of those who are born in the church but who rebel against God and will go to Hell? This is not God's fault, they take themselves away from God. Those born in the church go into idolatry even as those born in the land went into idolatry. They give credence and worship to the inventions of the heathen. And it's not God telling them to do that, they do it on their own.

Many in the churches will be lost because they are brought up in the nurture, in the abundance, in the blessings of the Lord, but not in the fear of the Lord. The love of God is shown in that he warns us of, and gives us the means to avoid, his terribleness.

The mortal sin of the unbeliever is his unbelief. God does not cause this kind of sin, or any other, for that matter. It is our adversary who is busy fomenting unbelief, which, of course, will most assuredly lead to Hell.

Whose fault is this problem of unbelief? Besides our own rebellion, I have no choice but to point the finger at the Church. They don't tell it straight. Beginning with the Catholic Church to all the iterations of the Protestant Church nobody told me how it really was. I was told that since Christ died for my sins I should now live for him and serve him. That he died for my sins so I owe him and should make a commitment to him.

What commitment? What choice is there? Where else is there to go? There is no place else. It's Christ or the lake of fire where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched.

The problem with those statements of the Church is the lack of a threat. Nobody told me to be terrified.

Grace exists only in the Law

One of the biggest misconceptions regarding the Bible is that the Old Testament is merciless Law and the New Testament is total Grace (unmerited favour) that takes people out from under that merciless Law. Nothing can be further from the truth. Grace exists only in the Law. There is no grace apart from the Law. The Old Testament contains the grace that exists only in the Law. Only in the Law do we have a payment for sin, the blood sacrifice God has obligated himself to honour. There is no way to access Christ other than through the Law.

There is much confusion over some writings of Paul that declare we are not "under Law" but "under Grace." And also that "for by the works of the Law no flesh shall be justified." If at the time of Paul people thought that every item of the Law had to be fulfilled in order to be saved, that is not the fault of the Law. The Law doesn't say that. God expects us to sin, that's why he instituted payments for sin in the Law. The Law never says that if you fulfill the whole Law you will be saved. God instituted, mandated, sacrifices for sin right from the start.

Perhaps the effort to fulfill the Law was a consequence of having gone into captivity and those efforts became the traditions that ruled the day. But Paul, by his own experience, saw, and felt compelled to make clear, that it was impossible to fulfill the Law. That is because the Law is not just carnal, but also spiritual. And Paul not only does not do away with the Law but takes refuge in it by clinging to Jesus the payment for sin, which is spelled out in the Law.

The book of Leviticus is the most thorough catalog of all the different sacrifices for all the different sins. Grace is not an afterthought. God orders us to take the payment for our sins, he commands us to be saved. Everybody was commanded to participate in the Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. There is no way to be saved other than by the sacrifice made by God, there is no alternative to the lamb of God.

The New Testament, read without a thorough knowledge of the Old Testament, can be very harsh, more so than the Old Testament. That is because many of the sins pointed at in the New Testament are spiritual in nature and the spirit inside us is out of our reach. The bar we must jump is raised ever so high.

That thorn in Paul's flesh

But the bar has always been insurmountable. God says "Thou shall not covet." It is the very sin of coveting that Paul says slayed him (Romans 7:7). Paul says he would not have known lust except the Law had said: "Thou shall not covet." Did the Law cause Paul to have lust? Of course not. What the Law does is bring sin right to our face. It points right to it. If we are not under Law but under Grace, why was Paul so dismayed about being a sinner? Why did he say he was slain? Why was he as anguished as he was? Why did he plead with God to remove this thorn from his flesh, this concupiscence that tormented him? What is concupiscence? It is unlawful and irregular desire for sex. He was obsessed with sex, as the vast majority of men are.

Most Christian teachers avoid the subject of Paul's thorn in the flesh but Paul doesn't. I've heard people say that Paul's problem was that he was losing his sight and he cried out because of that. That is nonsense. Paul was as tough as they come. There is no way he would have complained due to a physical ailment. That diminishes Paul. He never complained. When he was thrown out of towns, punched, kicked, stoned almost to death, he never cried out to God "Oh, why do you let them do this to me?" But that thorn God left in Paul's flesh was not physical but spiritual and there was no way he could stop his sexual coveting.

God left that thorn in Paul's flesh so that Paul would not think himself better than anybody else, while at the same time reassuring Paul that his grace covered even him. Obviously, Paul saw himself under the Law but he also saw himself under the grace that exists only in the Law.

And now the real Lamb of God, the very grace of the atonement long promised but never before seen, had arrived. Paul was at once appalled and relieved. Appalled at his own wickedness and relieved at the arrival of Jesus.

Paul was honest enough to recognize that though he could go through all the rituals and be one hundred percent obedient to all the ordinances, he still had something deep inside himself he could not control. Coveting is not a physical sin, nobody can see it. It is a sin of the mind, a mental sin in an invisible realm. Nobody can tell that I'm sinning, I can think what I like and covet what I like.

What wickedness! Where are the knobs I can turn to change myself? Only the Spirit of God can reach into my spirit to change it.

The only way to feel grace all the time, is to feel pardoned all the time. But in order to feel pardoned all the time, one must know oneself to be a sinner all the time, to know that there is something to be pardoned for. In other words, grace can only be felt upon recognition of one's sinful tendencies, not necessarily sinful deeds but sinful spirit. Grace can only be felt when one becomes aware of the necessity of being pardoned, when we are able to recognize our utter corruption.

Grace is felt upon repentance, but repentance is hard to come by, because in order to repent we must see how despicable we are, and our quest for self-esteem won't let us do that.

It is interesting to note that many Christians who reject the Law of Moses, which God himself gave to him, have no trouble putting themselves under the laws of Paul. Whatever Moses said, forget about it. Whatever Paul said is the Law. They know more about Paul than they do about Moses, who shows us Jesus. There is no place in the world, other than in the Old Testament, where we can find out precisely, who is the Lamb of the Passover, the Kinsman Redeemer, the Scapegoat, the City of Refuge. For us he went through this?

If it were not dumb it would be comical. One place where people reject the Law of Moses is in the dietary laws. The say, oh, no, no, no, we don't have to follow the dietary laws because those laws were for National Israel (which, by the way, the words "National Israel" don't exist in the Bible) and those laws have nothing to do with us today because they were only symbols of the coming Messiah and all were fulfilled in Christ. "Let no man judge you in what you eat and drink…, etc.," therefore all that is not for us Christians.

Yea, sure, I've heard that before. Think what you want about it but, myself, I would like to know the difference in cancer rates or diseases of all kinds between the people who follow the kosher laws, and those who do not. I'm no Seventh Day Adventist or acolyte of any sect, and I am not following directions of some wacko. I do know that in the Middle Ages, when plagues ran rampant in Europe, many Jews were killed because people accused them of witchcraft. Apparently, the Jews didn't get sick in nearly the same numbers as did the rest of the population, and some thought it was by witchcraft that they avoided sickness.

My only reference is the Bible, I know what certain groups believe and it's fine, I'm not interested in futile arguments. But there can be only two reasons for God's commandment regarding the dietary laws: One, he is capricious, he is telling me what to do just to impose his will; or two, he is looking out for my health.

I can say this: If you know God like I know God, then, the only motive for his commandment has to be that he is looking out for my health. I have no doubt about it. What? Does God make any money if I don't eat pig? What difference does it make to him?

But tell me this, why is it that the same Christian who rejects the Law of Moses is so quick to embrace the Law of the Doctor? The doctor says, don't eat fat, don't eat juicy meat (that is, with the blood), avoid shell fish in certain seasons, even pork for the amount of fat and certain diseases pork are susceptible to, oh well, oh, my, oh my, I really have to take this seriously, this is something to be reckoned with. I need to pay attention to my diet.

Our faces get long, the doctor says our blood pressure is too high. Cholesterol, plaque, oh, boy, I better do what the doctor says. You know why the doctor tells you to keep away from certain things? Because as your physician he has a responsibility, a duty, an interest to tell you what is best for your health. That is what a good doctor should do, give you the best advice because he cares what happens to you. Is it possible then, that we might for a fleeting moment consider that perhaps God, as an afterthought even, might have something like that in mind? That he tells us what to do because he cares what happens to us?

People want to understand what Paul said without having a good working knowledge of what Paul knew. What Paul knew is what we today call the "Old Testament." Without a good foundation in the Old Testament it is not possible to properly benefit from the writings of Paul. And the moment Christianity departs in any way from the Law God gave to Moses, that is the moment when whatever Christianity says is completely invalid.

But the "holiness" movement remains big these days. To justify this quest for "holiness" (couched under "sanctification"), many point to passages that talk about being "born again," and becoming a "new man," the "old man" having died, being crucified with Christ and all that. There are many people who believe they are no longer sinners after they repeat these things over and over. They think human nature was one thing in the Old Testament but another in the New Testament. They learn to speak "christianese" lingo, they learn cliches without knowing what they mean, and delude themselves into believing they have attained a higher level of purity.

This is what this "holiness" is about, sinlessness is the object. Tell me about it. If you are one of those who entertain such thoughts, you are guaranteed disappointment. In time you will find out you are as prideful as ever, as covetous as ever, and as angry as ever, which, of course, are grievous sins.

But when you find this out about yourself, when you realize you haven't advanced one iota in your insides, that you are not only not better but instead you are worse, that you really are as despicable as you secretly thought you were, oh, you can be sure that from the other side comes our help. He comes out of a secret place, a place inaccessible to us. He is the ruler of the invisible world, he is the one who changes us. He is the one who pays for our sins, he is the one who reaches inside us and turns the knobs. He appears to humans in a position of always having existed, which goes even beyond the invisible world. He created the invisible world, he was there before everything, he is there forever more backwards. There is nothing to compare to him.

As far as our salvation from Hell, that is, the resolution of Purity versus Impurity, he solves the problem by imputing Purity to us when we claim the blood of Christ as the full payment for our sins. We need to say: Me, too! Me, too!, I too want to be part of that agreement! There is no other hope.

Long before we realize we have the need he is there with the means to fill that need, he is there with the means to heal the rift between us and him. Before we knew him he loved us. From him comes mine help, from God himself. He is my refuge, my shield, my strong tower, my rock, my defense, the horn of my salvation, he is the Lamb of the Passover, he is the City of Refuge, he is the Kinsman Redeemer, he is my exceeding great reward, he is the rich relative who buys me out of the slavery of death.

He is the only trustworthy one. All men are liars and only God can be trusted, from his side only comes our help. Where we were weak, he was strong; where we were powerless, he was able. He is able to any degree imaginable, and beyond to the unimaginable. His arm is not too short, nor his hand weak, nor his eye dim. We were powerless in our ability to reach up to him to grab hold of his coat. Our arm was too short, our hand weak, our eye dim. But he stooped down to us to save us. Is that a small thing?

This magnificent love, this assurance of salvation is what sanctifies the human heart. This is what cleanses, the love of God for us, not a made-up human effort.

Interestingly enough, the fact that he loved us before we knew him, is in itself quite amazing. When people come to know God, or start going to church, etc., they put on their best behaviour. They don't cuss, they don't spit on the floor, whatever. But God loved us before we knew him, before we knew he was watching he loved us. When we were at our worst in front of him, before we knew he was watching, he loved us. When we hated him, when we ranted and raved under our breath at him, at him.

When we cursed him, he loved us. How badly we behaved toward him! Yet he loved us. Before we knew he was watching, at our most unguarded worst, he loved us.

At this juncture, several words should be noted that oftentimes are not as clear as they should be: Confession, holiness, redemption and repentance. This is basic stuff, but sometimes obstacles are created for no good reason.

Confession

The word "confess" doesn't mean to tell God something he doesn't know. The word "confess" when it is broken down into "con"-"fess," means to say with, or, to say at the same time. We don't confess to him, we con-fess with him. You and he agree, say at the same time, that you are no good. He already knows you are no good, he knows your going out and your coming in. To confess is to admit to God something he already knows. Confession is for our benefit, not his.

Holiness

Yes, we should be holy. Holiness or holy means to be designated, set apart. If you have a handful of nuts and bolts and set some of them aside for use, those separated ones are "holy." It is often advocated that, upon becoming a Christian, one should no longer hang out with former friends because they are of this world and we are not. Those former friends are still under the influence of Satan and we can no longer be yoked unequally with them. This is true. Deut. 22: 10 says, "Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together..." There is a practical reason for this. Oxen and asses walk at different paces, one trots, the other ambles. You can't plow that way, you'll go around in circles. So, yes, we should avoid some of the former acquaintances. But by personal experience I have found that when God sets you apart pretty soon your former friends begin to avoid you. You don't have to get rid of them, they'll get rid of you. Because when you are saved and know what you are saved from you can't shut up about it and your friends don't want to hear it. Your point of reference has changed and there is no way to bridge the gap with them anymore. When you become sweet incense to God you also become a sour smell to most of your former friends.

Redemption

The word "redemption," too, should be properly explained. "Redeemed" is commonly applied to an individual who has recovered from a life of waste and is now a productive, responsible citizen. This bum was redeemed and he went from being a drunken janitor to owning the company. That's not what the Bible says. The expression "to redeem" always means "to buy back." When applied to babies, boys or girls, they had to be bought back from God. All the babies belong to God. To redeem your baby you went to the temple and paid money to buy back him or her. It is the same as when you go to the pawn shop to buy back your watch. When we talk about redemption and Christ, it means that he buys us back from the second death and Hell.

Repentance

The word "repentance"is another word that is misused, and abused by many who think they have a corner on holiness. The word repentance (metanoia) means "change of mind." But this is not something like quitting drinking or smoking. The doctor has already told you these things are bad for you. You want to keep your health, then you quit doing certain things. I have worked on the waterfront in San Francisco, as a machinist on the shipyards, alongside highly skilled people, but also alongside drug addicts, drunks, and people just out of jail. I saw many of them totally recover. Lots of them quit their bad habits and ways and became better persons, better workers, responsible people, but without ever repenting to God. A person can quit drinking and doing drugs, become clean and sober all without repenting to God. But even clean and sober they will still go to Hell, if they don't avail themselves of the blood of Christ.

Metanoia is a major change of the mind, a trans-formation, an alteration of the mind. Repentance is a radical happening, it is an abrupt change of direction, one moment you are going one way and the next moment you are going the other way. This is not like the drunk who says, oh yes, I'm sorry about all those times I was passed out in the gutter but now that I found Jesus I don't do that anymore. No, it's not like that at all. Repentance involves taking your eyes off the world and putting them on God. Everything you despised before you worship now, and everything you worshipped before you despise now. It is a huge change. Your entire framework of how you assess the world changes. When before you saw the Bible as something to be laughed at and the views of the secular world as the truth to go by, now you see the views of the secular world as something to be laughed at, and the Bible as the truth to go by.

Repentance is something the likes of which not many people have truly experienced. It is a strange, transforming affair. There is a part of repentance, a cleansing of the soul, that only tears can accomplish. Repentance involves remorse, a sense of having done something wrong, unjust, undeserved, to someone. It is a sense of having been so very insensitive, hard hearted, toward someone who cared the most for you. Repentance is something that swells up inside you, a mixture of sorrow and gratitude. Sorrow for being so hard toward God and gratitude for being saved in spite of that.

God says in Ezekiel 20:43, "And there shall ye remember your ways, and all your doings, wherein ye have been defiled; and ye shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for all your evils that ye have committed."

Salvation precedes repentance, which precedes confession. Repentance happens as a consequence of salvation and not something one does to be saved. It is the mercy of God, the grace of God, that hands out these gifts to us.

CHAPTER THREE

The World

The end of the world. Hatred the Arabs have for the Jews. The last days. Wickedness and violence of men. The wall of denial. Guilt and death, and punishment after death.

At any rate, without the blood of the Lamb on us our impurity remains on us and we are guaranteed to go to Hell after we die. Nevertheless, in spite of this dire situation we have vis-a-vis God, this fact we humans intuit, for the most part people seem totally unconcerned about what will happen, if anything, after they die. The word "seem" is used because there is concern but it's not readily picked up. The concern occurs at deep levels of the unconscious. It frequently causes anxiety, a sense of impending doom, but the anxiety is not focused on any particular thing. It is felt in a generalized way, we don't really know where it comes from or what causes it.

The end of the world

We blame events in the world or in our personal lives for this anxiety. And we can't get a handle on it, the anxiety that is, because the anxiety is about eternal destiny, not daily happenings. Satan is very successful at using events of the world to get people to focus their attention there, as if the dangers were there. He prevents people from seeing past their noses, past this life. He distracts them with the things of this world and of this life. He gets them worried about AIDS and about cancer, heart disease, or the atomic bomb, or the end of the world. We know terrorism now in our own flesh with the airplane crashes against the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. We are deeply involved in a world-wide war against terrorism. And it is heard constantly, there are wars and rumours of war, nation against nation everywhere. Madness in Africa, madness in Europe, madness in the Middle East, all the same places involved in many ancient wars are back in the news again. Regarding nasty weapons, biological and chemical, as it was in the beginning of the last century during the First World War, so it is now. But with a difference, what was bad then is much worse now. As quality has improved, the usage and reliance on bio-chemical weapons has made a big comeback among nations.

Experts call these weapons "the poor man's atomic bomb," because of their enormous powers of destruction and relatively cheap cost. We hear the descriptions of VX, one drop on your finger you'll die in an hour, and anthrax (of which now we have direct experience through some deadly mailings not long ago), one spore in your lungs will kill you in five days, and we shudder. New diseases have been unleashed from genetically altered viruses for which there is no cure. Also diseases transmitted from animals to humans, mass contaminations.

Is this the Book of Revelation coming to pass? Could these be the diseases, plagues and wars described therein? Could the present war on terrorism take us to global conflagration through small wars that expand increasingly, as the pangs of a woman in travail? Jesus says in Matthew 24: 7 and 8: "For nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows."

The United States is in deep mud in Iraq, there has been a tsunami in the Indian Ocean. In both cases, losses are staggering, long term commitment is unavoidable. The United States is already in debt, world economies will suffer.

These events are just the beginning? How bad is it going to get? What Jesus describes is not going to happen in some distant prophetic future. It is happening now.

Could all these things be the words of Jesus coming to pass? Could these be the beginning of things leading to the Great Tribulation (if we are not already there) and to the end of the world?

Yes, they could be..., but so what? What difference does it make to you?

One hears a lot of preaching on the return of Christ and of the end of the world and how one should repent before the end comes and there is no more time, be ready. I happen to agree with that, at least the part about being ready. Death can catch up with you at anytime without warning and readiness is a must. But there is such a focus on the end of the world that the urgency, the immediacy, of the need for salvation is neglected. The way some people make it sound is that you should be watching for all these signs so that you can discern the end of the world approaching. If the end of the world is near then Christ's return also must be near and then you can try to calculate how far you can go and party to the end, or just a little before the end. Then at the last second, you can quit your rebellion against God and jump on the bandwagon of salvation just before the end.

I don't know. It's a bet. The bet is that we can know exactly when future events will happen. The problem is that death can catch you in the middle of that planning. Did the bird know that on that day he would be caught in the net of the fowler? Even if all those disasters and wars were the signs indicating the proximity of the end of the world, what difference does that make to you? The end of the world is of no concern to you. If the end of the world comes tomorrow and you die tonight you will not see the end of the world. But you still have to deal with your final destination. You have to make provision for your final destination now, now, this very minute--not at the end of the world. Lots of people have died waiting for the end of the world. Do you know when your life is going to end? Even death row inmates can die before the day they are to be put to death. If you knew exactly when you're going to die you could wait to the last minute, go for the party to the end. But no one knows their appointed time. You can't wait for the end of the world. The end of your life will be the end of the world for you, and then, eternity.

Nevertheless, the threatening events that are supposed to appear before the great tribulation are all around and are very real. Many prophecies are coming to pass. Israel is back in the land, this generation (perhaps the generation that witnesses the comeback of Israel) shall not pass before the great tribulation gets going, the rebuilding of the temple is being planned, the rebuilding of the priesthood is going on, the red heifer has been procured (whose ashes are essential for the purification of the priests), and so on. These are current events in Israel. The preparations have continued apace, unnoticed. Everything seems to be on track for the rebuilding of the temple, a big sign of the end times.

Hatred the Arabs have for the Jews

But I tell you this, there is no way the rebuilding of the temple is going to happen without a major catastrophe. All the hatred the Arabs have for the Jews will cut loose if the Jews go ahead and try to build themselves a temple. No question about it. The Arabs will be adamant about this. They already consider Israel a cancer in the region. They call Israel "The Zionist Entity." What is "entity" if not a foreign body, an alien thing, a thing that should not be there? The amount of land Israel has is not the question. A look at the map shows that Israel has a sliver of land pinched in the middle, when one excludes the so-called West Bank. But even the West Bank, the land claimed by the "Palestinians," clearly belongs to the Jews. Where is Bethlehem? It is on the West Bank. Does anybody not know that Jesus was a Jew born in Bethlehem? How come all of a sudden Bethlehem belongs to the "Palestinians?" That doesn't count Jericho, Hebron, the Tomb of Rachel, the Tomb of Joseph, and on and on.

In the struggle for the land the present day Jews are at a great disadvantage in relation to the Arabs. The Jews don't hate the Arabs, but the Arabs hate the Jews. That means that the Arabs fight harder, they fight with another level of intensity. It is merely the fact that the Jews are there that drives the Arabs crazy.

As far as the Arabs are concerned all of Palestine belongs to them and Israel must be cut out, as one cuts out a malignant growth. The so-called moderate Arab states, like the Saudis (not so moderate when we consider they are the birthplace of a good number of our enemies), are only waiting for someone like the Syrians, or the Iranians, or someone else, to take action against Israel and then they will support them. Just because the "moderates" are sitting on the sidelines now and are not rallying against Israel does not mean they have accepted Israel's right to exist. They just don't want to look in that direction. Yeah, yeah, I know you are there, you exist... for now.

The whole issue in the Middle East is Israel's right to exist. There is no Palestinian problem, there is only the Israeli problem. The Arabs are using the Palestinians as a goad, as the tip of the spear against the Jews. The Arab nations have no sympathy for the Palestinians, they are just using them. Proof they have no sympathy for the Palestinians is that in most, if not all, Arab countries where Palestinians are born, they are not allowed to become citizens of that country. They are still Palestinian refugees. These are second, third, fourth and more generations, yet they are still strangers among their so-called "brother Arabs," without the rights of citizens.

The whole problem in the Middle East is not whether the so-called Palestinians are going to have a State of their own, but whether the Jews are going to have a State of their own. The Arabs have not recognized Israel's right to exist. The presence of the Jews in the land the Arabs consider theirs alone, is intolerable.

Before the Jews went back in 1948 the Arabs were O.K.. The English had taught the Arabs how to behave, they looked almost civilized for a time. Everything changed when Israel established their State. The Jews took advantage of the pacification of the Arabs by the British and figured they could go back. Before the Jews got there everything was relatively quiet in the Middle East. There were Jewish communities in many Arab countries but as long as there was not a State of Israel they were tolerable. The State of Israel is not tolerable, it is a repugnant odor in the nostrils of the Arabs.

The enemies of Israel are only biding their time before they launch another attack, better concerted this time, against Israel. Even though both Arabs and Jews are descendants of Abraham (the Israelites through Isaac and the Arabs through Ishmael), the descendants of Ishmael have never accepted the existence of the descendants of Isaac. Ishmael is envious and enraged because, even though he was the firstborn, the promise didn't go to him but went to Isaac instead. It is Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; not Abraham, Ishmael and the Arabs. The envy of Ishmael against Isaac remains even today. They have even falsified the account of the Bible where Abraham offers up Isaac as sacrifice and say that it was Ishmael whom Abraham was offering.

With that kind of animosity there is absolutely no way the Arabs are going to allow Israel to build themselves a temple anywhere in the land of Palestine, let alone on the Temple Mount next to, or in place of, the mosque of Omar. As far as the Arabs are concerned all the land where Israel sits now belongs to them and Israel totally does not belong there. Israel will never be accepted by the Arabs, period.

And with the rising antisemitism worldwide, all of Europe for sure under the guise of anti-Zionism (as if it were illegitimate for the Jews to want to go back to their ancestral lands), all the nations of the world appear to be lined up against Israel, just as the Bible says they will be at the end. Already a majority of Europeans are of the opinion that Israel is the greatest threat to world peace. Maybe they are right. If world peace is what everybody wants and Israel is the problem, then, for the sake of world peace, let's get rid of Israel. After all, if their claim to the land comes from the Bible and we know the Bible to be untrue (it's only fables, poetry and such), why don't we just let the Jews be overrun by the Arabs and be done with it? What claim do the Jews have to the land? If their claim comes from the Bible and the Bible is a myth, they have no claim, their claim comes from a myth.

Will there be a point when all the nations of the world attack Israel as the Bible says they will? Yes, that will happen. But first the nations of the world are going to let the Arabs have another go at the Jews. The Israelites, represented mostly by Jews today (lots of Levites let themselves be called "Jews," but that's another matter), will be attacked by the Arabs from every direction and with utter fury. Is this going to be the great showdown of the world? What's going to happen? If Israel is attacked by a great force they will retaliate with atomic weapons. What else can they do? They have no choice, they are too small.

What will happen next? Well, if any Arab nation survives with its ugly weapons intact (chemical/biological) it will launch them. That doesn't even include the atomic weapons some Arab countries may have soon.

One of the few countries in the region that could be commended for its lack of false pretense is Iran. At least they don't give you any double talk, they say straight out that if they get an atomic bomb they will vaporize Israel. Iran has declared openly that if they obtain a nuclear weapon and the means to deliver it all the way to Israel they will do it. They don't make any bones about it, they just want to destroy Israel. There is big trouble brewing there, Israel may have to attack Iran to stop them. If there ever was a fuse waiting to be lit it is Israel attacking Iran before Iran can obtain nukes that can reach Israel. For its own self-preservation Israel must attack Iran before Iran is fully ready. It would be worldwide disaster.

All the Arabs will rise together if Israel attacks Iran. After all the Arabs, in will jump France, Germany, Russia. I hope England and the United States with their Christian populations (what's left of them) will side with Israel.

By the way, the only reason the Muslims hate the United States is because we defend the existence of Israel. The reasons given by many, that they hate us for our freedom and way of life, are nonsense. Generally, those are opinions given by people who have no idea of the reasons for the hatred of the Muslims toward us. Only in the Bible can the reasons be found. Only the Bible has the historical background to explain the situation in the Middle East. The envy and rage of Ishmael has not abated.

A Christian cannot not side with Israel, but who knows when that great showdown is going to happen and what the world situation will be at that time? Maybe Christianity will have been outlawed by then, which is already on its way to happening in several European countries. If it happens that Christianity is outlawed, and the United States abandons Israel, Israel will be alone in the world, and it will be the closest we will be to the end of the world.

Far or near, whatever it is, all the heavyweights will be drawn in. It will be a circular firing squad. It will be a free-for-all with enormous consequences for the whole planet. Millions of people all over the world will die from atomic radiation. The atmosphere will be altered, the total planetary environment will be changed. Water will be poisoned, food will be poisoned, great famines and chaos will reign. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, for sure.

The last days

Man, Christians are really up on that stuff, oh, yes, it's the book of Ezekiel, oh, yes, it's Gog and Magog, it's Russia coming down, it's the two million man Chinese army coming across the Euphrates, oh, it's the seventieth week of Daniel coming to pass, it's the ancient Roman Empire coming together in the European Union, it's the Beast of Revelation, no man can buy or sell without the mark of the beast, we'll need a mark on our foreheads to go buy groceries. Oh my, oh my, we are in the last days!

There is a big segment of our Christian population that eats that stuff up like bread. In a way, it's understandable. It is easy to become fascinated by current events, particularly when they seem to fit with prophecy. Satan doesn't mind that we study prophecies concerning the end times. We worry and that's what he wants, he wants us worried. He wants to make sure we don't look at the salvation of God and the importance of telling others about this vital gift. The whole issue is where we are going to spend eternity. He deceives people by focusing their attention on things that are on the immediate horizon, in this life. People jump from one place to another trying to avoid all these bad things, not realizing that what matters most is what is going to happen after this life.

These are the last days, all right. All things have an end. Even the science of the heathen tells us that the universe is going to expand until a point where it will stop. At that point, gravity will be too weak to reverse the expansion, which will make the universe go into a deep freeze; or, gravity will be strong enough to make the universe contract back into a horrendous chaos of colliding planets, galaxies and whatever else is out there, everything collapsing in with instant destruction to a tiny little planet like ours, back into that minuscule speck of something which started the Big Bang, which is the biggest imbecility ever devised by man to explain the origin of the universe. We are ready to believe anything except God.

Either way, this world will have an end even according to the heathen, so, no matter what, the expression "the last days" always applies as we continue through time to be every day one day closer to the end. However, that day could be very far away. The physical universe shows no imminent sign of those events. But our lives are much shorter than the number of years related to such matters, we have a different urgency related to the last days of our individual lives.

Whatever it is, this world is going to disappear one way or the other, but the next world will endure forever and every day we are one day closer to encountering that world. Every day there is someone who goes to work in the morning and never returns home for dinner.

To be sure, the signs given to us in the Bible regarding the state of the world just before the end do appear to be present. I say "appear" because there have been many times in history that it must have appeared that the end of the world was at hand. The time of the First and Second World Wars must have been a period like that, famines, war, disease, when surely many people all over the world must have thought it was the end when they saw such death and destruction worldwide.

Before that we have the wars and plagues of the Dark Ages. Before that we have some other bad thing. Bad things happen all the time, famines, wars, destruction, pain. These signs alone would not necessarily indicate the immediacy of the end of the world.

Wickedness and violence of men

However, if there is one sign one could point to as an indication that the end of the world may be near, that sign could probably be the increasing wickedness and violence of men. And I do mean men, the gender. Women have their own` wickedness, but not nearly in the same measure. Women do not steal children to rape, kill and dismember as men do. Women don't generally have the violence inside them that men have. Naturally, man, being the stronger, cannot be stopped. It is true that these crimes have existed for a long time, but not as widespread as they are today. World-wide children's pornography rings, sex tours where men go to some of the poorest countries in the world to have sex with children. Right here in the U.S. children are taken from neighbourhood parks, snatched from their front yards, taken from their very bedrooms. Predators and random violence are everywhere.

Jesus said the time of the end would be as it was in the times of Noah (Matthew 38:39), when people were buying and selling, marrying and giving in marriage, and many other activities. It would be a time when the busy-ness of the world would be in full gear, everyone living their lives completely unaware of the impending demise. That's how it is right now. The stock market has everyone's attention. And the wickedness and violence of men is probably very close to what it was in the times of Noah. Genesis chapter 6, verses 5, and 11 to 13:

"And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."

"The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence."

"And God looked upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth."

"And God said unto Noah, the end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth."

The present great wickedness of men certainly could be a sign of the end times. Man is no worse than he is only because the Holy Spirit has restrained him. But we know that in the last days the Holy Spirit will withdraw his restraint from the spirit of man and wickedness will really cut loose, which is what appears to be happening now.

But Satan plays more than just one game. On the one hand he makes people fret about the world and local events, on the other hand he gets them to relax with the suggestion they are going to have five minutes before they die to make sure everything is going to be O.K. with God. You call the priest and tell him you're sorry for all the bad things you've done, appeal to the mercy of God, have the violin music in the background, manipulate the best you can and hope you will not go to Hell.

But don't worry, you will have this little bit of time, somebody will blow a trumpet, there will be an announcement and you'll have your allotted five minutes to repent, just before death comes.

Did Princess Diana have five minutes? Did the foolish virgins have five minutes?

In general, however, Satan prefers to obscure the subject of death, and does so fairly well for the most part. Most people don't want to be reminded of the certainty of death, some trivialize death by making jokes about it, others present a face of resignation and say, oh, sure, I know, everybody dies, but I'm not going to worry about it because there's nothing I can do anyway. And, yet others, work really hard at preserving their health. Look at all the Christian programs dedicated exclusively to health related issues and how to live longer. They want to hang on to every little bit more time they can. Is it possible they don't believe Heaven is as good as advertised? Or is it because the rest of us need them so badly that they sacrifice themselves for us and that's the reason they want to stay on the Earth?

Or, maybe, if they live long enough the Rapture will happen and they'll be transformed in the twinkling of an eye and go to Heaven without having to die. Or, maybe, somebody will come up with something, invent a pill against death or something. Anything but to think that they themselves are going to die.

Death is not something that happens to just a few. It is an event awaiting every person alive now. The death penalty does not apply only to criminals. This is going to happen and there is no money to buy a fence to keep death out. Even those who appear to be making a choice of life or death by committing suicide are only accelerating what is going to happen to them regardless of what they do. And who can say that what appears to be their choice was not the time appointed for them to go, anyway?

The wall of denial

The wall of denial is nearly impenetrable. Of course, when one considers the horrible possibilities awaiting on the other side, the denial is justified. How can the possibility of going to a real Hell be faced? But being in denial means that we are fighting reality at a subconscious level. We don't want reality to come to the surface of consciousness because that reality would be intolerable. How can one seriously consider going to Hell? It would be a crazy maker. But that reality remains there, staring in silence, in the back rows of the mind.

The awareness of deserving punishment is an unresolved issue that does not go away. Denial and repression of this guilt cause health problems (mental and physical). The effects of this denial/repression show up in dreams, create much psychological distress and ailments, the most common being panic attacks, phobias, low "self-esteem."

Guilt and death, and punishment after death

Guilt and death, and punishment after death, occupy a large portion of the minds of the unsaved. And in fact, when a situation in life arises wherein we feel punished, in a very perverse way we may welcome the punishment as some kind of payment for our sins. If we get the sense that we are somehow paying for our sins ( see how I suffer?), that would go a long way toward alleviation of guilt.

So, we seek sympathy for our hard life, for all the work we do that goes unappreciated. If people around us would cooperate and notice our suffering that would certainly help. But most of the time nobody feels sorry for us. We try to show others how unfair our situation is but most of them absolutely don't care, they don't sympathize with us at all. They just want to talk about their problems. We don't even know if God is paying attention. Which can certainly leave us unsure of whether or not we are paying for our sins. If nobody notices, what good is my suffering?

Charity is another way frequently used in the attempt to alleviate guilt. My good works ought to count for something. Witness all the rich and famous people who have tried, or are trying, that approach. A useless life piles up a lot of guilt and they need to get rid of it. Doing good works becomes the thing to do.

When we sense death and the vultures circling above..., then, we become "spiritual." All this talk about "spirituality," particularly coming from the heathen, some of the most famous and creative of the heathen, this "spirituality" thing, is nothing less than an awareness, an awareness, faint but there, of death circling nearby. We want to be sure everything is going to be all right after we die. Donate an hour of your time, or a day, or a week, or a month. Give us your money to help the needy. Save the whales, save the redwoods, save the seals, save the children. Do something, whatever you can do for the betterment of mankind, please do.

It's all an unconscious effort to please God. We want to have a justification for our lives, feeding children or working to improve the environment or working for animal rights. Involvement in something like that gives us the privilege of saying, see my good deeds? I'm doing my bit, I'm worth something, all the time rolling our eyes and clasping our hands, in the hopeful but mistaken belief that the punishment or charity involvement, somehow, will make an installment payment for our sins.

For a while, at least, it seems to work. We do feel good about doing good things, and rightly so. The problem is that if we fool ourselves that this is what we need to do, we will never get to what we really need to do. We may pretend or hope that those good works are good toward something, that they will count in some way. But the subconscious is not fooled. The subconscious knows there is more to be paid. The good deeds we must perform are never enough. We have to keep making payments toward erasure of our sins but they are never enough, and never will be enough. No matter the number or importance of those good deeds, guilt will continue to crack the whip.

Part of the reason guilt will continue to crack the whip is that we also know someplace inside us that any work that is ultimately designed to pay for our sins is tainted from the beginning and thereby nullified.

The awareness of deserving punishment always returns, and the weight of the burden increases over time. We must be absolutely sure of our pardon to be free from this burden. Only someone who knows he or she is saved can do something for nothing. Only a Christian can do something for nothing. All others move from guilt.

The drawback of acting from guilt is that it never resolves the problem, which is the heading toward Hell. It does not deny the benefits of the actions taken, the good works done. There is absolutely nothing wrong with feeding children or working to preserve the environment or working for animal rights. The problem (self-deception) occurs when we take these actions as valid points toward erasure of our sins. God has declared that all our works are filthy rags. There is not a thing we can do to contribute to our salvation, lest anyone should boast.

As far as the wall of denial is concerned, it is broken only when we realize we are saved. When we realize we are saved we can acknowledge to ourselves how corrupt we really are; and that will free us to do the good deeds with a song in our hearts, with jubilation and genuine love.

CHAPTER FOUR

The Gospel

The Covenant. Election & Free Will. Does God keep control of the number of people born? Who are we talking to? Is praying for the dead a false hope? How about those who never heard?. Sincerely wrong. Are we talking to the heathen?. Pearls in front of the pigs. The Lost Sheep of Israel. Are some of the heathen saved?

The word "gospel" means "good news." The good news is that the death of Jesus is the payment for all our sins, past, present and future. This is as simply as it can be said. The payment for all our sins is a done deal, accomplished, finished, signed, sealed. There is nothing for us to bring to the table, the covenant is binding totally on God. He is the giver, we are the takers. He has cleared the way into Heaven for us.

The covenant

One of the most clear expressions of this covenant is Leviticus 17:11, which says: "For the life of the flesh is in the blood and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul."

He has made a covenant with us with all the benefits going our way. He is the author of the covenant, and he is the fulfiller of the covenant. The price for sin is death and he provides the part of the covenant we cannot provide, the part that pays for sin. He has given us the blood of Christ, the death of Christ, upon the altar to make an atonement for our souls, for it is the blood of Christ that maketh an atonement for our souls. He has made us free and clear.

Everything was made by him and without him there was not anything made that was made. And the cross is included in all the things he made. He gave himself up for us. What a deal! A way out of Death and Hell? Let me have it. A person would have to be completely insane to let that go by. Yt insanity is the most prevalent condition in the world today, a fact proven by the rejection of Christ.

Election and free will

Here we go into the bottomless subject of election and free will. There is so much I don't know about it that, for the most part, I can only ask questions. I know there are people out there who know everything. There are experts out there who know exactly what God was thinking all along. Myself, I have to confess my ignorance. Part of my problem is that there are so many different opinions among experts, that I would need another expert to tell me which one of those experts is right. But, I've been around a while, and I'm still not convinced that anybody knows for sure the whole subject of election and free will. And really, why should that be surprising? Why should it be surprising that many of the things of God are past finding out? There is definitely election on the part of God, and there is definitely free will on the part of man. How and when election and free will interact, what is their connection, is very intriguing to me.

One of the most important of these questions is: Is everybody who is going to be saved, saved only from before the foundation of the world? Or, to put it another way, are there some people who were not elected at the time before the foundation of the world but who have a chance to be saved, anyway? And I don't want to argue about the fact that before the foundation of the world there was no time. Whether there was time or not, as we understand it now, there was a point when God existed and we did not. There was a point before the creation and before there was time, and at that point God was already there making certain choices about those who were going to be saved.

Does God keep track of the number of people born?

The question is: Does God keep track of the number of people born? Did God look into the future and know exactly how many people would be born for all time? Did he choose everyone who was ever going to be saved at that point? Is the number of people to be saved locked up for all time from the foundation of the world? Or did God choose not to keep tabs on how many people would be born therefore giving himself the opportunity to save people as the world goes along? After all, he has chosen to throw our sins behind his back and remember them no more. Obviously, it's not that he couldn't bring them back to mind if he wanted to. But he is choosing not to. He treats our sins as if they had never happened. Maybe he is choosing as well not to know the number of people born.

There is some precedent that shows numbers kept purposely unknown. One place where this happens is when David wants to number the people of Israel. He orders Joab his army commander, one of his cousins, to do it. Joab begs him not to count the people because it would be a sin. But David was the boss and Joab had to obey his orders.

It took over nine months for Joab to scour all Israel(which was many times bigger than it is today) and go into every nook and cranny of the kingdom to get a number. He gave the information to David and the Bible says in II Samuel 24: 10: "And David's heart smote him after that he had numbered the people. And David said unto the LORD, I have sinned greatly in that I have done...,"

I'm not exactly sure why it was a sin to count the people but it was. Some people suggest that the sin of David was that he wanted to know how many people he had available to go to war, something that perhaps God didn't approve of. But that is not what the Bible says David wanted to know. He wanted to know the total number of people in his kingdom, not just those people who could go to war. David didn't ask for the number of warriors, though that is reported. He wanted to know the total number of the people.

The fact is that David never got the total number that was in the kingdom. Joab decided on his own not to count the tribes of Levi and Benjamin (I Chronicles, 21: 6). Also, by the time Joab got back to report to David, nine months and twenty days had elapsed from the time David sent him out. Plenty of time for an undetermined number of people to be born so that the actual number was never known.

Then we have in Revelation 7: 9, these words: "After this I beheld, and, lo a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues, stood before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands." The point of interest for me is that it says that no man could number the multitude. Obviously, it cannot be that the number would be so large that one would run out of digits. There are anywhere from 5 to 7 billion people in the world today. If there were a million times that number at the end they could still be numbered. We can handle any number with the computers of today, so the multitude that no man can number cannot be a multitude so large that there is not a number to express it, it must refer to the fact that no one has been able to keep track of them.

So, maybe God is choosing not to know the whole number of the people who will be born. Though he can know how many hairs there are on a person's head, he can know that without keeping track of how many of us are here. Maybe there will be more people saved as the world goes along, I wouldn't know.

I can not be sure about these things, but that's what I want to believe. Otherwise it makes no sense to spread the gospel. What for? If God has already chosen all those who are going to be saved and this happened at the foundation of the world, what's the use of telling anything to anybody? If God has already made up his mind as to who is going to be saved and who is not, there is no need for us to be in the picture. If they were elected from the foundation of the world, they were saved before they were born. How are we going to make any difference?

God has promised he will lose none of his sheep, so, if he is going to save them no matter what, he'll figure out a way, there is no need to tell them anything. Those who are saved are saved and those who are lost are lost. The ones who were chosen to be saved will be saved so we don't have to tell them; and those who were not chosen to be saved will not be saved so we don't have to tell them, either.

That would be the logical conclusion if no one were going to be saved who was not chosen to be saved from the foundation of the world. If those are right who say it is completely a matter of election and once elected you could not get out of it, well then, God has made robots. Salvation is a charade. It's all an illusion and meaningless words.

But he didn't make robots. Though, perhaps, it would have been better, easier, to make robots from the beginning and avoid all this trouble of having people run off in every direction. Instead he gave us free will and a response. We have a very firm response to God. The response is that we reject him, push him away, despise his ways.

Going back to the subject of spreading the gospel, the fact is that we do have standing orders. Mark 16:15, "And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." We have direct orders from Jesus. That ends the discussion as far as doing the job is concerned. He told us to do it, so, we have to do it. The question is: Why do it if the outcome has been decided at the foundation of the world and there is no chance to alter that outcome? I know he doesn't waste words or orders so he must have a good reason for us to spread the good news. This brings up the next question: Who are we talking to?

Who are we talking to?

When we spread the gospel, who are we talking to? Are we talking to the whole world? Or are we talking only to his sheep, the ones who were chosen from the foundation of the world? Is there a possibility of salvation for those who were not chosen from the foundation of the world? Boy, that would certainly give me an incentive to continue pestering people. It would give me a reason to continue to warn the heathen. While I am compelled to feed the sheep and do it with gladness, I would love to see many heathen saved.

Yet, I know that no person can save another. Only God can replace a heart of stone with a heart of flesh. Only God can put blood on the tip of someone's ear. But I experience excitement and a kind of exhilaration when somebody I'm talking to "gets it." It's joy, pure and simple. But I don't really believe I had just "saved" somebody. For that matter, I don't even believe I had "led them to the Lord." Nobody comes to the Lord unless the Father draws him. Nobody comes to Jesus unless the Father himself sends the Holy Spirit to catch them, to catch those who are running away.

Another possibility regarding salvation is that we all start out saved. We all start out written in the Book of Life. This would be the most fair of all possibilities. Otherwise it would mean that God would let people be born knowing they would go to Hell. Having chosen the number he wanted, he would allow millions and millions of people to be born just to go into suffering. That's not possible, it's not his way.

There are several references to the Book of Life in the Bible. Moses mentions it, David mentions it, the Book of Revelation mentions it. But when Moses and David refer to the Book of Life they talk about being "blotted out" of it, not "written in." The contrast between the expressions "blotting out" and "written in" the Book of Life would suggest we are all written in the Book of Life to begin with.

Revelation 20:15, "And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire."

Why were they not written in? Were they never written in from the start and God let them be born knowing that they would go to Hell? Or were they blotted out?

Personally, I think they were blotted out. Or else we go back to where God would be doing something against his character. God grieves for us. Why would he let people be born knowing they would go to Hell without any possibility of salvation? It is just not in his character. He is all goodness and compassion.

One by one, due entirely to the rebellion born of our free will, we work ourselves out from under his wing, and we get blotted out of the Book of Life. We get blotted out because we run away from him. He already bends over backwards to not kill us all. God cannot be blamed. We are made in his image, we are smart. He says his wellbeloved had a vineyard in a very fruitful hill, planted it with the choicest vine, fenced it, removed all the stones, built a tower and a winepress, and when he expected good grapes he got bad grapes. What else could he have done that he did not do? The only solution would have been to not have given us free will.

But when do people get blotted out? Is it immediately upon committing any transgression, or do they get blotted out at the end of their natural life? Surely they are blotted out at the end of their natural lives, because God calls people till their very end. And perhaps they get blotted out even at the last minute just before being thrown into Hell, beyond this natural life; that is, when the end of the world has occurred, the judgment has come and Hell begins to receive its share.

It is necessary here to add a word about those near to us who have died unsaved. With the Bible being the guide and not the traditions that rule most churches, we know that Hell is not yet open for business, because that will happen at the end of the world. We also know that the prayer of a righteous man availeth much. We also know that we are made righteous by the blood of the Lamb, our Jesus. And we know, as well, that God listens to the requests of his children, those adopted into the family of God, those who belong to Christ. We are Pure, Holy and Undefiled with the blood of Christ on us. Therefore, we are allowed, authorized, to come into the Holy of Holies where the ark of the covenant is. With the blood of Christ on us we are allowed to come into the presence of God to make our request known. On top of the ark is the mercy seat where he meets with us. The mercy of God sits on top of the Law.

Is praying for the dead a false hope?

All those facts being so, there is nothing that explicitly stops us from asking God to save those dear to us who are gone and who may have died unsaved. We absolutely don't know that there will be an effect favorable to our request. But neither do we know the contrary. That is, perhaps God will listen to our request for salvation for those close to us who have died unsaved. At least, we don't know if praying for those gone from us will make any difference. But, since it's no skin off our noses to entreat for others, praying for salvation for them is a totally legitimate endeavour. It is better to err doing something we are not sure it will work than to do nothing because we think it will not work. Is praying for the dead a false hope? Maybe, but, notwithstanding the opinion of some experts, I don't know enough to know it is a false hope.

There is a curious effect caused by the praying for others. It changes you. It gives you a sense of depth. Life is a whole lot more that just getting up to go to work every day. There is an eternity ahead of us, and ahead of everybody else we know. Praying for salvation of friends, family members, and others, is the least we should do. Knowing what we know about Hell, even enemies cannot be such enemies that we would want them to go there.

Praying for your enemies, asking God that your enemies be saved, causes the most change. And I'm in no way suggesting that you have to like praying for someone who has done you wrong. Forget liking it. But little by little as you pray for someone with whom you have a grudge, your attitude begins to change, the grudge slowly disappears. Sanctification is sneaky.

Going back to the question of election and free will (which never seems to end), what does God mean when he says "return to me?" Is he saying that we have free will to return to him? And how can anyone return to him if they don't know who he is? But is that true? That people don't know who he is? I don't know about that. God has put in the heart of every human being the notion, the feeling, the certainty that we are in big trouble with him and have to do something to ensure that there will not be a horrible outcome at the end of our lives.

How about those who never heard?

How about those who never heard? Well, if God is going to save only (and all, of course), those he chose from before the foundation of the world, then, those who never heard are, or would be, all those whom God did not choose for salvation. It makes the question moot. Those who never heard were not chosen to be saved. If that were the case it wouldn't matter at all that there would be many who will not hear. By the way, not all those who hear will be saved, either.

But this question keeps coming up: When did God stop choosing people? At what point before the foundation of the world did God say I'm going to let a bunch of people be born now, none of whom will I choose to be saved? That sounds incredible to me. Why would he do that? It would be better not to be born than to be born and go to Hell. It would be better not to be born than to be born and go to Hell. And a problem with being born is that you're pretty much stuck. You are here now and have to deal with it. Suicide doesn't help because it only accelerates the process of going into death and whatever after.

At any rate, I am still on the subject of God's choosing and of the end of the world, all of which is utterly unfathomable to me but which I continue to want to understand better. If from before the foundation of the world God had chosen someone who will be born after we die, then, we who are alive today will not see the end of the world. Because the end of the world can only come after everybody whom he has chosen to be saved is saved.

Now, if on the other hand, the end of the world can only come after everybody in the whole world is made aware of the death of Christ as the payment for his or her sins and of his resurrection as proof that the payment for those sins was real, if everybody in the whole world on an individual basis had to be made aware of those facts before the end can come, then, surely, the end of the world would never come.

Actually, I don't really believe that everybody in the whole world on an individual basis has to hear. That is insane. Everybody in the whole world above the age of accountability would have to hear. And, obviously, people do have an age of accountability. Witness the situation at the time when the Israelites were about to go into the land. Those who were from twenty years old and upward when they first chickened out and refused to go into the land all died in the wilderness. Those twenty years old and under did not die in the wilderness. They were not held accountable even though they had the same rebellious nature as their parents. If individual notification is required for the end to come there would be no end. Every second there are thousands of people turning twenty and all would have to be notified. The end could only come if there were a period of time when nobody would be born. It's ridiculous. There would have to be a gap of time between those under the age of accountability and those above it.

Whatever it is, God has until now confounded everybody who has given a date for the end of the world. Human time doesn't mean a thing to God. He has plenty of time and does according to this own figuring. He's kind of independent that way. So, it may not be on an individual basis that everyone has to hear, but in a corporate sense. That is, that the gospel reach not necessarily every human being on the planet, but that it reach all countries of the world. If that is the case the end could come at any time. Because from the beginning Christians have reached the remotest areas in the world, and there is probably no country that has never had a chance to hear about Jesus. There are Christians today even in the most hostile countries. The majority of those hostile countries are Islamic. They have heard of Jesus, they know about Jesus. They consider Jesus as one of the Prophets. But they have, as the majority of the world has, rejected the claim that Jesus is the son of God, God himself, the payment for sin.

The Bible is not a religion. Religions have come from the Bible but the Bible itself is not a religion. Religions are born out of the necessity for men to reconcile themselves to God. We all know we are in trouble with God. Jews know they fall short regarding compliance with God's laws. Muslims also know the same. Hindus, Buddhists, Free Masons, Zoroastrians, Ba-Hai's and more, the followers of all these religions know they are unclean and have to remedy that condition. And they all have heard of Jesus, they all have heard the claim that he is the payment for sin, but they don't believe it, they shove it away and reject it.

Will they be saved who reject such great salvation? If God says all your works are filthy rags, so that nothing you do counts toward your salvation, and at the same time you reject the only thing that will save you out of the fire, what is the conclusion to draw? What more can God do, other than to present the facts?

Interestingly enough, many of those who ask the question: "How about those who never heard?," they themselves have heard. They are not really interested in those who never heard. They ask the question so they can point at the seeming unfairness of God, and mock the God of the Bible and the Gospel. They couldn't care less about those who neve