Guess Who Part I

Guess Who Part 1

1/20/15

I am going to go with a different approach to this article in that I am going to give you a passage of words and I would like for you to read it, study it and then decide who I am talking about.  The catch of this approach is that at the end of the article I will give you the answer as to whom I am referring to and hopefully one shall see what god wants to understand about our lives, the Church and the condition of the world and how all of it has become woven into one big entangled mess.

If you are familiar with my articles and the way god has showed me to write about the topics He wishes for us to understand, it will be easy to conclude that He uses history as a base for these topics.  It is amazing to me that He not only uses human history, biblical history but He also uses my own personal history as well and to be honest He leaves nothing amiss when doing so.  I have also repeatedly stated that many people within the world do not care about history and for the most part pay no attention to it and the results that it has brought to the world. 

God wants us to understand that He sees everything that we have done in our lives; no matter how hard we have tried to hide those things.  God also knows everything that every person, tribe, band, group, company, troop, state, province, country and nation has ever done and that nothing has escaped his all seeing eyes.  This is why He can honestly state that He knows and understands our hearts and it is through our hearts that He justly rewards us for our doings.  And since God is a complete God and it is stated that He gives and takes away, sometimes those rewards that we receive are not always the “best” in the line of graciousness; or at least we may not believe so at that moment.

It also must be considered that God understands modernity and everything that comes along with it.  While we love to remind everyone that we are by far the most advanced and technological society to have ever graced this planet, we quickly forget who actually gave us the ability to make all of these toys that we believe we cannot live without.  This means that since God is the one who gave these things to us then He can render them useless as well, especially when they become more important in our lives than His ways.  This method of progression comes from God and He is the only one who can authoritatively remove this process from our lives so that we must re-evaluate our standings. 

We also have been given a powerful tool in establishing the truth about what is going on in our lives and in our world.  It is the gift of our mind and our heart.  Our hearts are the created organs that bring us life and allow our desires to be thought about and then developed.  It is our lives that allow us to complete this process and to achieve the furthering of our existence.  God’s plan for our lives does not include anything that has the opportunity to hinder us in any way, but if we stagnate our relationship with Him the divine directive that He has for our good will be compromised.  When you place all of these truths into place we can understand how important it is to keep God in our lives and at the forefront of every choice we make.  Now, for the meat of the article and the fulfillment of the title of this article.

“When it began, they were still using God’s name, but with less and less meaning behind it.  Then they started merging Him, confusing Him with the gods of the nations.  And then they began turning against Him – subtly at first, then outright, then brazenly – driving Him out of their national life and bringing in idols to fill the void.  The land became covered with idols and altars to foreign gods.  They rejected their covenant, abandoned their standards, and exchanged the values they had always lived by for those they had never known – spirituality for sensuality, holiness for profanity, and righteousness for self-interest.  They cut themselves off from the faith on which their nation had been established and became strangers to God.  And as for their innocent, their little children, they offered them up as sacrifices.”

That is the passage that God has shared with us.  Now, His question to us is this: Guess who this passage is talking about?  There are some statements in this passage that automatically shift the setting to some time in human history and that would be an accurate assumption.  But when one places this passage into the concept of human progression it renders it not so easy to know what time frame it is referring to.  It is also important for us to understand that it is not just the physical aspects of these actions that are in play here, that it also refers to the spiritual ones as well and it is the spiritual side of these matters in which shall determine our current status within the world.  Let us look at what transpires when we break each sentence down in that passage.

“When it began, they were still using God’s name, but with less and less meaning behind it.”  It is easy to understand how this statement can be placed into any society that wishes to exist without a supreme being as its divine and authoritative figure.  All throughout the Bible God has to deal with Israel concerning this matter on a wide array of levels.  In some instances it was small and in others it represented a huge destruction of wealth, status and even personal life.  In our time we as a nation have witnessed this event occur as well.  While some of these views have been present with us since our establishment it has only been since the 20^th century that they have become widely and violently displayed.  The movement seriously gained presence in the 1950s and has grown with every decade since, none greater than the last few decades of our history.  We can use God’s name but only in certain times and in very limited places within our society, yet we can incorporate and force other religions upon our children at any time.

Then they started merging Him, confusing Him with the gods of the nations.”  What a powerful statement that portrays a choice of the people.  Only a loud and voicetress cry from the people can something be merged with a society, and this occurs when the popular opinion of such conditions are generally accepted.  This occurs within any historical nation or current nation simply because of the inhabitants and the ideas that they have within.  Look at our nation and how we have incorporated Allah into the same category as God.  Allah, a made up god that has been placed into existence by a human / human created being and proclaimed as the savior of the personal being.  It is now being taught that God and Allah are the same and that they are equal on every level, virtually merging God with this false and non-existent figure and we are buying it and now selling it to the world.  It is easy that we fall into this category as well, just as the nation that is being referred to in the passage was.

“And then they began turning against Him- subtly at first, then outright, then brazenly…”  My mind can only fill with many thoughts of how this past society accomplished this feat.  The ideas and methods must have numbered in the thousands and grew with each short period of time just by the examples we have concerning this nation.  The thoughts and patterns were there and we read about them over and over and many of us failed to even recognize them, for they are almost word for word of what we are demonstrating today within our own country.  In order to have this pattern one must first question the existence of God by belittling His existence and presence within both the personal lives and within the laws of the nation itself; it grows from there.

Denying His existence within our lives is the first step in doubt, which was actually administered to Eve in the Garden of Eden, and if you want to go back even further for the truth Lucifer himself doubted God’s true existence – think about that statement for a moment and then place it into the context of this article.  When we subtly exclude God it usually means on a personal level and then it continues from there just as something starts as an individual idea and grows into a law.  The next step after some friends join in the gathering it is time to step up the idea and make it public and show to others that one can have this belief and still continue to draw breath.  This opens the door for other thoughts which will support other ideas and in this case focus upon ourselves with the exclusion of God, but we are still hesitant when challenged but bold enough to publicize our new beliefs.  Kind of sounds like our society back when I was a young kid.

Progression becomes further into our human thinking and we begin to increase our intolerance to the “controlling” lifestyle that we were raised from.  The world has no answer to this that it will give but will include God in the reasons for our breakaway from our beginnings.  With the new backing and lists of freedom demands we openly condemn God from our existence in every form and have nothing to do with His ways and beliefs, we have found out that we can have these beliefs and still draw breath so it must mean that it is ok.  Protesting and then aggressive legislation arrive and it is now illegal to even mention the name of God outside of personal settings, but that too shall change pretty quickly since even travelling to church is on the table as illegal.  We now can see hawks testing this process by intentionally provoking known groups into standing up for what they believe.  The brazen aspect of our society is now in full swing and it has no intentions of falling away.

“- driving Him out of their national life and bringing idols to fill the void.”  This is one of the defining statements in the passage that says it is not referring to a modern day society.  But let us look at what this sentence is really saying.  How do idols actually become idols?  Idols are objects that are placed within a life, a group or even a society that one looks towards and worships as if it were alive and a part of them.  It is a representative of how their heart believes and the ones who worship this idol will pay homage to it on a regular basis.  We know that Ancient Greece and Rome had huge temples and statues that they erected in the name of gods and used these figures to worship the specific god that it was built for.  Sometimes these statues were even conceived and then generated for leaders of the community.  It is a voluntary process to build a setting in this manner and when this type of setting is constructed there cannot be any mention of God since He cannot have any other gods before Him.

In our society there are not statues and buildings that have been erected honoring Zeus, Hercules, or any other person that we are required to walk by and pay tribute to.  However, we have created within our own personal lives an idol of self that requires continual monitoring and praising that represents the exact concept as a statue or building that the ancients erected.  WE are fervently creating our own personal gods within our lives all-the-while ignoring the individual requirements that these idols are requiring from us.  The excitement of these new objects, create an overpowering sense of personal reality and, in fact, establish our own individual and independent reality inside; what can be more specific than this feeling?  Are these types of feelings that the group portrayed in the passage the same as we are displaying today?  Humans exhibit similar tendencies to do similar things, no matter what part of history one wishes to consider, so I would have to say that both cases are the same just by this fact alone.

The scary portion of this sentence is that we can place whatever we deem necessary into the idol category.  It does not matter if it is money, cars, women, men, guns, or even pets they all can fit into this category and become the center of our existence.  We have no idea that we are actually filling a void in our own personal lives when we try to place idols within our lives.  Each one of us has a portion of God within our lives, God established it when He created mankind and He continues this process today.  And when this occurs we shall defend our choices to the death simply because we have chosen to instill the idol philosophy into our lives.  There is no room for God in this atmosphere, and there is a simple explanation why.  The world understands who created it and it also knows who its ruler is and given these two facts, the phrase have no other gods before me comes into existence.  Therefore, after a certain amount of time, God’s opposition becomes brazen for it is the natural progression of human idol worship.

“The land became covered with idols and altars to foreign gods.”  As I mentioned in the above paragraph, this statement is an example of a natural progression.  Idols and their status became so popular and common that it was not unusual to dodge them as one went to the market.  It did not mean that there was always someone laying items down in remembrance or someone paying homage to them constantly, but it mean that these symbols were present all around, whether it is in public places or in the privacy of individual’s homes.  It did not matter which idol statue, god or foreign god was presented, the only thing that counted was that everyone knew that they were there and had the opportunity to present themselves to them at any time.  This action automatically takes God out of the personal lives of His people and when allowed to be cultivated long enough on the individual level, the national level is not far behind; just human and worldly progression laws at work.

Once again it is not difficult to see these patterns in our own lives today.  We as a society place things on a heightened level, especially things that we find close to our hearts and might support our cause.  I am reminded of a movie that came out a few decades ago called “Die Hard”, it was a series of thriller movies that predicted a police officer fighting bad guys, some of them foreign and some Americans.  The part that I am referring to occurs in the first movie where the person in charge of the heist is making his demands to the police.  He begins to list some of his fellow terrorist groups and the release of some of their members that various governments are holding across the world.  As he is making his list he mentions one group that his comrade is not familiar with.  When immediately questioned about who the group is, the leader states that he read about them in “Time” magazine.  The story is fictional of course, but at the same time it brings into light of exactly how we feel concerning idols and causes that support our own.  It is also the identical reasoning to allow other idols into our society and to have them dominate our lives, no questions asked.  Again, since God is the creator of the world and the world has its own ruler, which is the immortal enemy of God and us, God cannot live within this environment.

“They rejected their covenant, abandoned their standards, and exchanged the values they had always lived by for those they had never known…”  This statement is very important and very concerning at the same time.  “They rejected their covenant” portion speaks volumes and should be taken quite literally.  To reject something means those people involved chose to not follow something that was previously put into place.  This could mean a change in flag colors, it could mean a change in official meetings with other nations or it can mean changing the entire basis for the foundation of the nation itself.  I cannot imagine God becoming enraged over the changing of a flag but I can see Him becoming concerned about this maneuver since it could become a process in which further and deeper changes may occur.

In this statement a specific word is used, covenant.  It is a word that the country being referred to was defined by and through and is a word that is eternal in nature and can never pass away.  The word itself stands alone in its meaning since it cannot be broken only violated.  For it is a word that God used in order to define His relationship with this country, for eternity.  God cannot change in any shape or manner which means He cannot change this standard for any reason.  Since this word is an eternal word that means only the other party has the possibility to violate the meaning of this word.  For if God was able to change His standards then He would be classified as a fraud, give His immortal enemy the legal right to reclaim his position in heaven and justify every sin that has ever been committed.  Covenant is based upon blood and it is eternal, period.

Just how many standards were changed in the people’s lives within this nation?  It is an easy question, for it was enough to make mention of this entire process.  Changing a standard in order to benefit a society is a wonderful concept, but it is its foundation that represents its beauty for the people.  If its beauty relies upon the world and personal gain without holy guidance it will only progress into selfish indignation which is the only attribute the world can offer.  However, if the foundation of this standard is rooted solely within the confines of God, the real beauty of its raising will be achieved.  According to this passage it is evident that the raised standards of this nation was strictly on the personal level and in such time turned into a selfish baseline for their existence.  And as we all know, God wants us to choose Him over everything else that we know or live by which means there cannot be any “self” product placed before Him.

It is common place that humans like to have new things in our lives.  It does not matter if it is clothes, food, cars, houses or anything else, it seems like we need to have something different at regular intervals.  We cannot deny that sometimes these new and exotic items become enough of our lives that the idea of something new turns into an obsession, and then dominates our thoughts and actions.  This sentence provides another portion of evidence that this nation had turned its spiritual heart away from God, so much so that once again their standards have to be specifically mention as a caustic agent of their condition.  I could write 14 articles on this simple phrase alone and still not cover all of the items that detail out this phrase.  It is the concept of bringing in new ideas that stimulates our lives enough that once they are incorporated into our presence we will defend them with every breath.  Through my own life I can understand how easy it is to forget the ways of the Lord and how His presence in our lives becomes dull when we are not studying His Word and applying it to our lives.  And when we allow the lack of studying His Word to leave our hearts, we have no other choice but to accept new worldly conditions and standards which we have not known before.  Worldly excitement replaces godly and holy excitement, and while happiness temporarily arrives, certain pain and separation will soon follow on many levels of our lives.

“- spirituality for sensuality” This portion of the sentence addresses a huge explosive topic that speaks volumes about the condition of the human heart.  This term is solely based upon the sexual intentions of humans and how they “get their message” out to everyone else around their immediate world.  The definition of the word sensuality is as follows: the enjoyment, expression or pursuit of physical, especially sexual pleasure.  These three words describe a transition of the human in such a drastic manner that it goes from a holy life to a physical and sexual life.  This subject I will be sharing a separate article on, but I cannot ignore the topic now for it falls into such an extraordinary position within the nation’s function that it actually changes how they view life itself.  When a nation goes from being in a spiritual one to a sensual one it changes its desires from a godly nation to a worldly nation; the priorities of such a nation change, on an individual level, group and even national level and with this priority change comes directional change as well.  And when this occurs, the protection of God that surrounds mankind begins to wane and if not corrected according to God’s standards, will break open and life-changing events will begin to be noticed.

We know that this nation that is being referred to in this passage contains humans and we also know that humans exist today, so that means that the human desires and wants are the same both during this time in history and now which means our hearts have the same conditions as well.  It is no secret that sex dominates our lives, no matter what one confesses to be sex represents the most physically attractive and luring facet that dominates our lives.  We all know the origins of sex and why it was created.  Yes, it is the highest form of pleasure that mankind can experience and it is meant to be put into practice in a holy and just manner.  These three words make it clear that sensuality has replaced holiness within that nation and that they have voluntarily torn down the foundation of this institution in order to personally gratify themselves.  This step shall lead to another form of grotesque mannerisms and is addressed in a few sentences below.

“holiness for profanity” is another huge national heart change that speaks loudly to the spiritual and overall condition of a nation.  We all understand that our lives cannot measure up to God’s standards.  From the time that we are conceived until we draw our last physical breath on earth our physical lives represent nothing but death and destruction.  It is a natural occurrence to do good, to trust the human race and to seep a steady and sound heart each day.  Having respect for others who do not share your personal views is a great example of this nature, yet when our desire to do our own personal agenda thwarts this concept holiness goes out the door and holiness’s enemy joins the club.  Words, texts, concepts, and laws reflect the nature of a nation no matter which direction they are driven.  I can only imagine how the language, general references and attitudes were like in this nation in the passage, but it must have been pretty rough and prominent to be placed within this list.  What does profanity gain a person when it is used in such quantity that one cannot go without using such speech in every sentence?  What does it say about the human heart when this type of sentence structure comes out of the mouths of a nation?  It should strike terror in a godly heart for it demonstrates that God has not place within the heart of that person.  It then can be construed that if the national leaders follow their constituent’s lead, that the nation concurs with this standard as well.

“and righteousness for self-interest.” This is pretty much self evident when a nation has changed its priorities.  A righteousness nation will do their best to do what is right in the eyes of their people and to the other nations around them.  Their attitudes towards what is right and what is wrong are clearly defined and everyone involved with that nation knows and understands that those values shall not change.  A righteousness nation will help other peoples and nations when they are in trouble and stay as long as necessary and to provide the needed resources until stabilization is achieved; it does not matter if the situation warrants spiritual or physical help.  The nations in need shall see this true love and respect for their conditions by the actions of the righteous nation, both inwardly and outwardly.

A self interest nation may still provide the supplies to the nations in need, but will provide these supplies with conditions and demands.  They will provide hem but have a standoffish stance towards that nation or people.  They will gladly report about the atrocities committed by others but fail to recognize that they could help or even prevent them from occurring if they had a hand’s on approach to the situation.  The needy people may even be within their own nation or region yet the connectivity and closeness once shared with these people has been cut and while we watch their calamities develop we stand back, shake our heads and go on vacation or go shopping.  Our human, inner distance from these people is painfully recognized by these hurting people and forces a further divide between the two groups.  We lived in one area of the country a long time ago that thrived on this concept: I will be your friend but stay at arms distance.  It is this concept that now consecrates each relationship within humanity and it has produced a self interest and self perseverance mentality that has changed the course of our existence and has complemented all of the other abominations that we now “enjoy.”

“The cut themselves off from the faith on which their nation had been established and became strangers to God.”  This sentence and statement should not come as much of a surprise to anyone.  Why?  Because when a nation incorporates all of the above conditions and accepts them as their foundational and functional state, this is the only course possible that a nation can follow, both physically and spiritually.  It is clear that the nation in this passage has done just this and has enthralled them into this lifestyle without any hesitancy and is now producing a standard that their children only know as normal.  Their faith comes purely from what the physical tells them, even while they ignore the fact that their beliefs are based upon flaws.  The human existence is just that, human and does not require any spiritual guidance from God and if ever suggested that God is needed, the “uninformed and closed minded” opinions are mocked and ridiculed all in the name of a new life without the boundaries of God and the so called limitations He brings.

The need for churches and the messages that they give are no longer deemed worthy.  The secular concept of separation of church and state becomes “miraculously” introduced to that nation’s life and eventually serves as the foundation for this concept, which is rapidly built due to the physical attributes that the Church is presenting.  Yes, even the Church and the concepts of God have been changed all to fit and suit the lifestyles of that nation.  A new foundation has been established and there is no need or use for God within this foundation for it is built upon the very best standards known to that nation, free and equal for everyone who wishes it.

How many of you have cousins that you have never met or only knew when you were very young?  Probably many of us fit into that category and while these people are a part of our family we have no idea about their lives, what they do for a living and for some of us we do not even know their date of birth, yet they share our own blood.  This is a prime example of how this nation in the passage above “knew” God.  While God and everything He stands for was the foundation of their nation, they knew nothing about Him.